


Forget Love, Fall in Coffee

by Neurotoxia



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Anal Sex, Angst, Communication Failure, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Oral Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Single Parents, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:03:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5172239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/pseuds/Neurotoxia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Thranduil Orophersson gets stood up by a date at the Laketown Café, the owner Bard Bowman offers him a drink on the house to make up for the snub. Over coffee, they hit it off and Bard would like for them to become more. However, he isn’t sure Thranduil wants the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm tall, dark, and fantastic in the morning

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unrepentant indulgence of the tropes I always wanted to write but never dared. However, I still aimed to give the characters life and not walk them down every beaten path. If you enjoy a bit of coffee shop with your angst, this might be for you.
> 
> Rating and tags apply to the overall fic. I reserve the right to up the rating to E after all since I remain undecided whether the smut deserves the Explicit rating. Also, I may add tags later, in case I forgot them before. This fic is entirely written and will be posted on a chapter-to-chapter basis. I aim for once a week, but it depends on my time constraints and possible beta turnaround since later chapters are still in the editing stage.
> 
> I extend my usual thanks to [crookedspoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon) who supported this from day one, be it cheerleading or jogging my brain when I got stuck, not to mention the occasionally needed clip round the ear. Another big thank you goes to [carmenta](http://archiveofourown.org/users/carmenta/pseuds/carmenta) who has been a wonderful help with editing.

His daughter might hate the morning rush, but Bard loves it. It keeps his hands and mind busy and stops the nagging worries of the stack of bills on his desk. The morning rush gives him the illusion of money to pay said stack of bills and still have enough to fix the faulty wiring at home where you trip a fuse if someone uses the kettle in the kitchen while the washing machine in the bathroom is on. It’s made Bard swear at the the fuse box in the basement more often than he cares to admit. Fact is, it’ll take some more time until he can think about calling an electrician. They’re not doing badly, but Bard had to spend his savings on a fridge a couple of months ago after his faithful old appliance called it quits. And while they’re not doing badly, they’re not rolling in money either. The upkeep of a café isn’t cheap, even when you don’t have to replace furniture over and over because some arse put their feet on it and ruined the upholstery. Thank god Bard could just pinch armchairs and other assorted furniture from the bulk rubbish or haggle prices at flea markets. The haphazard collection of chairs, tables, lamps and bookcases was his wife’s idea, something about ‘vintage charm’ Bard doesn’t get to this day. He leaves it to Sigrid now to approve or reject what he drags in, she’s inherited her mother’s aesthetics. She’s practically the boss anyway, Bard doesn’t even remember how he kept running the place while she was still little.

Not that Bard has ever had the makings of a café owner. He used to drive lorries for a living, delivering wine to restaurants, shops and bars. The café was Elke’s kingdom and she ran it like clockwork with utter dedication. It was Bard who’d taken paternal leave when their kids were born, he was much more suited to the stay-at-home parent thing – Elke would have gotten cabin fever within a few weeks, as much as she loved the babies. She’d poured so much love into her little café that Bard didn’t have the heart to sell it when she died six years ago. Ovarian cancer, advanced stage. Short and brutal; it was only eight months from the diagnosis to her passing. Knowing she’d die anyway, Elke had chosen not to have chemotherapy, preferring a shorter lifespan at full strength to spend with her family. Her aunt had died from cancer as well and spent most time before her death weak from treatment. Bard had supported her decision; being weak and tired all the time would have been hell for his energetic wife. Before she died, she told Bard not to worry about the café and that he should sell it, seeing as he’s never liked coffee much. Sentimental old sod that he is, Bard hadn’t listened and kept the place. Percy and Hilda, Elke’s most loyal employees, gave him a crash course in all things coffee and even managed what his wife never could: make Bard develop a taste for it. He still prefers tea and Hilda calls him a heathen for it, even if she does so fondly.

The morning rush bleeds into a lunch break rush, the warm spring weather doesn’t disperse the thirst for coffee and Bard is glad they decided on an iced variation for the week’s special: cà phê đá, Vietnamese iced coffee. It sells like hotcakes, most people are brave enough to try it without knowing what it is precisely. Their menu is peppered with coffee and tea beverages from all over the world, from Mazagran to shaah to Wiener Melange, and Bard is sure it’s what keeps them afloat amidst the mass of Costa, Nero and Starbucks. It’s afternoon before it finally dies down, allowing Bard to check their inventory while Percy and Sigrid handle the customers. He’s crouching under the counter, calculating how long the packets of brown sugar stashed there will last, keeping an ear tuned into the conversation above.

“I think the poor guy has been stood up,” he hears Sigrid say.

“Looks like it,” Percy murmurs, rearranging the mugs in front of him by the sounds of it.

“Who?” Bard asks and peeks over the counter, ever unable to fight his curiosity.

“The guy in the throne,” Sigrid says and nods to her left. “He keeps checking his phone and the door. Came in an hour ago.”

Bard looks over to the far corner of the room, to the armchair Tilda has dubbed the ‘throne’ because of its high ornate backrest. It’s her favourite piece of furniture in the café and she calls the customers sitting in it king and queen. The man in the chair would certainly gain her approval for the title of king: he’s dressed in grey slacks and a blood-coloured red shirt, a spill of white gold hair travelling down his back to the point of his elbow. Combined with high cheekbones and pale skin, he exudes the regal air Tilda would deem appropriate for the use of the throne. But he indeed looks like he’s waiting for someone, checking his phone in short succession and looking up whenever the door chimes. From time to time, he worries his lower lip with his teeth, appearing nervous. Poor sod.

“Do you remember what he ordered?” Bard asks Sigrid, who gives him a puzzled look.

“Americano, I think,” she says. “Why?”

“Make another, please?”

Sigrid raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t argue and turns to making the espresso instead. She’s given up on telling Bard that he’s not required to be personally invested in the emotional state of his customers. Bard knows he’s a bit of a compulsive caretaker, and a hot beverage can do wonders in his opinion. Sigrid hands him a cup of steaming coffee moments later. Bard moves around the counter and walks over to the man’s table. The guy only looks up when Bard places the cup in front of him and takes away the empty one.

“I didn’t order anything,” he says, voice deep and smooth.

Up close, Bard finds himself in a state of mild awe. The man’s eyes are a gorgeous shade of icy blue and his cologne wraps Bard in a mantle of sandalwood, pepper and vetiver. There’s a scar running from his cheekbone to his jaw, a clean, faded line that reminds Bard of the one running down his own forearm where he cut himself badly on a broken wine bottle years ago. 

“Erm, yes. I know,” Bard says. “But you looked like you could use another. On the house.”

“Oh,” the other replies and looks at the cup, then back at Bard with a quirk of his eyebrow. “Thank you. Do you give free coffee to all of your customers?”

He’s got a slight accent to his English. Scandinavian, perhaps.

“Just the ones that look extra stressed,” Bard smiles. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“It seems I was stood up,” the man answers with a thin smile. “So not anymore, probably.”

“Sorry, that sucks.”

The other shrugs. “It’s fine. It didn’t seem like a good idea in the first place.”

Bard wonders who’d not take the chance to go on a date with a handsome creature like this one. Unless the guy hides an awful personality under the looks, Bard would jump at the chance. Not that he gets them often. There’s not much time for dating between running a business and raising three children.

“Blind date?” Bard asks.

“No.” The man shakes his head. “But I only ever agreed to this because my son keeps bothering me to go out again. He thinks his father is a hermit and will become a ‘grumpy old man’ before he reaches forty.”

“Ah, kids,” Bard smirks. “Always a pleasure when they take your love life into their hands.”

“Indeed,” the other snorts.

“Still, it’s your date’s loss if she didn’t come.”

“He, actually.”

“Oh,” Bard mumbles, feeling sheepish. “Sorry. I just assumed.”

The man waves Bard’s apology away, and Bard hopes he’s truly as unfazed as he looks. Bard should know better – being a father doesn’t default to heterosexuality. He smiles at the good-looking blokes just as much as he does at pretty women, always has. And for the last five minutes he’s been admiring this particularly fine male specimen before him, though Bard considers him woefully out of his league. Bard isn’t a troll; he knows he doesn’t look too shabby all things considered, but next to this guy he looks like a Shetland pony does compared to an Arabian stallion. 

“My son will think I’m lying if I tell him I got stood up,” he smirks. “He’ll think I didn’t go in the first place.”

“Put up too much resistance?”

“Quite.”

“I can write you an attendance note and sign as a witness,” Bard suggests with a conspiratorial grin. “Prove your innocence.”

The other chuckles and breaks into a short smile of genuine amusement. It pretty much transforms his cold expression into something much warmer. 

“That’s a kind offer, Mr.–”

“Bowman, but call me Bard.”

“In that case, you will have to call me Thranduil,” he offers and extends his right hand for Bard to grasp. “I’m afraid a witness statement would only make me look more suspicious.”

“Ah, so your son is one of those kids who’s not easily fooled?” Bard asks with a rueful smile. He knows what that’s like. Sigrid has expressed a healthy amount of skepticism all her life, wholly in the spirit of her mother. Tilda on the other hand still insists that unicorns are real, while Sigrid would have scoffed at the notion at the same age. 

“Too old, too smart and too familiar with his father’s habits,” Thranduil smiles back. It’s the kind of smile only long-suffering parents could give one another. “He will continue to badger me.”

“He seems very invested,” Bard teases, remembering a time two years ago when his children had ganged up on him and suggested various single neighbours as his new companion. Thankfully, it only lasted three weeks. It had caused a lot of embarrassed stuttering on his part.

“He leaves for university in summer and is concerned I will cease engaging in human contact entirely if left to my own devices,” Thranduil smiles wryly and stirs his Americano. “As tempting as that would be, my work wouldn’t allow it.”

“Come on, a bit of socialising doesn’t hurt.”

“You work in a café,” Thranduil quips with one eyebrow rising to meet his hairline. “Of course you’d think so. Spend a few gala evenings with the upper echelons and we’ll compare notes.”

“I think high society gala events are above my pay grade,” Bard snorts.

“Stay in the café,” Thranduil says. “I assure you it’s more enjoyable.” 

Bard laughs. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was intended as one,” Thranduil says around the rim of his cup. “It’s why I chose this place as the rendezvous point for today.”

“You know, even if that date fell through, you can tell your son that you managed to charm the café owner and nearly made him blush,” Bard says with a wink. “That might appease him.” 

Oh dear, is he flirting with Thranduil? When was the last time that happened?

“Hm,” Thranduil hums. “Perhaps I should take you on a date instead.” A smirk appears on Thranduil’s face and there’s a gleam in his eye that’s almost catlike. Bloody hell, is the guy flirting back? Maybe this Shetland pony has a chance after all.

“Perhaps you should,” Bard smirks back. “There’s this nice little café in Shoreditch. I hear the owner is devilishly handsome.”

“Oh?” Thranduil asks, radiating innocence. “Intriguing. Pray tell, do they serve a decent Caffè Americano?”

“The best one around.”

“I think we have a date, Mr. Bowman,” Thranduil says and Bard is willing to swear up and down it sounds like a purr.

“Brilliant,” Bard grins. “Tell you what: I haven’t had my lunch break yet, so if you were amenable, we could meet there in…say five minutes.”

“That is acceptable,” Thranduil agrees and drains the last of his coffee, handing Bard the second empty cup.

“I’ll be right there.”

With that, Bard strides back to the counter, a spring in his step. He slides the empty cups to Percy, who puts them in the dishwasher. Bard unties his charcoal apron at the back, flinging it over the hook to his right.

“Sigrid, be a dear and make two shaah, yes?” he asks, levelling a smile at his daughter. “I’ll pop into the washroom for a second.”

“What do you need shaah for?”

“Remember how you guys used to tell me I should go out with someone?”

“Yes, so?”

“I need shaah for me and my date at the corner table,” Bard grins and dashes off to the back as he hears Sigrid squeak something that sounds like ‘wait, what?’ In their bathroom in the back, he checks his shirt for coffee stains, finding none and douses himself with the deodorant he’s stashed in the cabinet. For good measure, Bard re-ties the bun keeping his hair from his face, aiming for the ‘casually dishevelled’ look with a few loose strands. He manages, sort of. There’s nothing weird stuck in his beard or teeth either, thank god. 

Well then, Bard thinks. Into battle.

* * *

“I was starting to think I got stood up a second time today,” Thranduil says by way of greeting as Bard appears back at the table, balancing two cups in his hands.

“Stand you up?” Bard laughs. “I’m not entirely mad. But I did need to clean up a bit and then wrestle the tea from the High Inquisitor, also known as my daughter.”

“That’s your daughter?” Thranduil glances over Bard’s shoulder towards the counter.

“Yes,” Bard smiles. “Sigrid. Keeps the café afloat, her siblings in line, and still manages to get top marks at school. I’m half-convinced she’s magic.”

Thranduil’s gaze wanders from Sigrid to Bard’s hands, as if looking for something. Bard can sort of guess what Thranduil is looking for. Others did it, too, on the rare occasions that he went on a date with someone since Elke’s death. As soon as he mentions the children, they look for a ring or for the indent of one, trying to suss out the ones who just want an affair on the side of wife and children. 

“I’m not married,” Bard says and holds up his hands for Thranduil to see better. “Not anymore.”

“Divorced?”

“Cancer,” Bard half-smiles, half-grimaces. “Six years ago. This used to be my wife’s café.” 

“Ah,” Thranduil says softly, a solemn look on his face, but none of the overplayed pity Bard is often at the receiving end of. “I’m sorry to hear that. I lost my father to cancer when I was fifteen.”

Bard pulls a face. “That’s awful.” Thranduil inclines his head in agreement. Bringing up dead wives and parents probably wasn’t the best topic for a first coffee date, but now that they are on it, he can satisfy a few areas of curiosity himself. “So, what about you? You said you have a son?”

Thranduil hums in agreement around a mouthful of spiced tea. “Legolas. He’s turning eighteen next month.”

“Eighteen, huh?” Bard asks and stirs some more sugar into his shaah. “If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you? You don’t look like the typical dad of an eighteen-year-old.”

Thranduil chuckles. “I suppose that’s true. I tended to be the youngest at parent-teacher-meetings.” He takes another sip. “I’m thirty-six. Legolas was an accident with my high school girlfriend.”

“But the best accident you ever had?” Bard asks with a smile, because this sounds familiar. Sigrid, too, was an accident. Though he hadn’t met Elke at school, but at a friend’s birthday party when he was twenty. Sigrid came three years later, and two years after that they got married. Elke had refused to marry simply because she was pregnant.

“Indeed,” Thranduil agrees. “Handling university and an infant wasn’t easy. And her parents were insistent we marry before Legolas was born. Religious types.”

“Didn’t last?” Bard sure knows these stories, he’s seen a few of the lads he went to school with become parents when they were barely of age. As far as he knows, only one of them is still married to the mother of his kid. These types of shotgun weddings never seem to hold.

“I wish it were that simple,” Thranduil muses and for a moment, he spaces out. “The truth is, I don’t know. Arnien disappeared when Legolas was two. She was at campus with a friend until late in the evening, but she never made it home after her friend saw her off. Some suggested she ran away, but nothing pointed to that. The police treated it as a potential crime, but the investigation never turned up anything.” He stares into the depth of his cup, talking about this isn’t easy, Bard can sense as much. Before he can reassure Thranduil that it’s okay if he doesn’t want to talk about it, the man continues: “After ten years, her parents had her declared dead and I came here. There was nothing to keep me in Reykjavik and Legolas needed a fresh start.”

Well, shit. What do you say to that?

“Look at me, spilling my guts to a near-stranger,” Thranduil says with a smile just shy of cynical. “Perhaps you should have become a therapist, Bard. I never felt compelled speaking with the ones I consulted.”

“People say my face has a way of making you want to open up and talk to me,” he laughs softly. “But maybe it’s just easier talking to someone who’s experienced loss, too, than trying to make someone understand. Though compared to what you went through…I feel I’ve had it easy.”

“Is it easier, though?” Thranduil asks. “Knowing death is coming?”

Bard shrugs. “I doesn’t make it hurt any less, but at least I got closure. The uncertainty can’t be very comforting.”

“Mh,” Thranduil hums. “That’s true. But I think I’ve accepted that she’s probably died a long time ago. Legolas used to call me cold for it, but if I still dwelt on it as much as I did in the beginning, it would have driven me mad.”

“It took me two years to finally take my wedding band off,” Bard confesses. “Before that, it still felt like betrayal, even if Elke would have hit me over the head with a frying pan were she to hear me now. She always said I was too sappy.”

“She sounds assertive,” Thranduil smiles and Bard has to smile back.

“Oh, she was.” Bard chuckles. “The no-nonsense type through and through. Always friendly, but she could be blunt as a hammer and just about as delicate. Unlike me, she would have made a terrible therapist.”

“Ah, I imagine you would always have been the type to chat with the customers and wrap them around their finger,” Thranduil teases.

“They say it’s my charming smile,” Bard grins. “Did it work on you?”

“That, and you bring me hot drinks,” Thranduil says. “I find it disarming.”

“Hot drinks are always a plus,” Bard agrees with a chuckle, glad that Thranduil seems to desire a change of topic as much as he does. Dead wives isn’t the pinnacle of light conversation, but they’re probably both rusty in that regard. “How are your coffee-making skills?”

“I am capable of pushing the appropriate buttons on the coffee maker,” Thranduil quips with a renewed spark in his eyes.

“Just what a guy likes to hear,” Bard snorts. “Do you at least serve it in bed?”

“That is a privilege one has to earn first,” Thranduil smirks. “Unless you’re my son who successfully tricked his father into bringing him coffee as there is no other way to raise him from the dead.” Bard wouldn’t mind earning a coffee from Thranduil, not at all. He could think of a few ways to convince him and most of them for an adult audience. The guy looks like every temptation rolled into one desirable package and Thranduil doesn’t seem repulsed by Bard either. Bard likes to think so, at least.

“Clever boy,” Bard snorts.

“That he is,” Thranduil concedes. “Though he will have to learn to operate the coffee maker himself once university starts.”

“Cutting him off the coffee source?”

“He’s doing that himself,” Thranduil says. “He wants to get his own flat or a flat share closer to university. Granted, Richmond is a little out of the way to get to university each day.”

“I guess at their age, it’s natural they’d rather hang out with their friends in bars than come home to their stuffy old parents.”

Thranduil makes a sound that could mean either agreement or disagreement. Bard already dreads the day when Sigrid might move out for university which is not far off. Just over a year, god. When did his little girl become an almost-adult?

“I offered to pull some strings and get him a flat where he won’t have to sell a kidney for living in a mouldy room in a decrepit Victorian terrace, but to quote him, he wants a ‘normal flat and not my ritzy glass concoctions,’ Thranduil smirks. “A flat hunt in London is not for the faint of heart.”

“Tell me about it.” Bard still shudders when he thinks of his own hunt four years back when they had to get a bigger place. Sigrid didn’t want to share her room with Tilda anymore, Bain’s room was barely big enough to fit a bed (not even a desk could squeeze in there, Bain did his homework at the kitchen table) and Bard had no bedroom, sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room. It took Bard eight months to get his hands on a place with four bedrooms. Said bedrooms were all tiny, but at least everybody got one. It lowered the argument rate in their household by at least thirty percent. 

Then Bard has a sudden flash of inspiration.

“You know what?” Bard bursts out. “I just remembered: there’s two regulars of mine about your son’s age who are looking for someone to share a flat with. They got a nice flat, but they need a third person to cover the rent. Aragorn and Gimli, they’re good lads. I mean, I don’t know your son, but they’re the type of people I’d let my children live with.”

“That sounds interesting, actually,” Thranduil muses.

“I can get your their contact info, if you like,” Bard offers. Couldn’t hurt for them to meet, Bard thinks. Aragorn and Gimli regularly complain that everyone interested in the room seems to be either off their rocker, a creeper or a right bastard. By now Gimli requires some sort of advance casting round to determine who even gets to set foot in the flat.

“Da?” Sigrid calls out from the front, just as Thranduil opens his mouth to say something.

Bard turns around to see a line of customers waiting at the counter, Percy and Sigrid already moving as fast as they can. The afternoon influx is starting, it seems. Shame, he would have liked to talk to Thranduil some more. Maybe one fake coffee date is all the gods would bestow on him.

“Coming,” he calls back and pushes back his chair. “Sorry, looks like I’m needed.”

“No need to apologise,” Thranduil says. “I’ll have to go back to the office soon.”

“At least now you can report back to your son that you’ve had a successful date,” Bard grins and gathers his cup, leaving Thranduil’s half-full one.

“Was it successful?”

“Well, no one had a drink splashed in their face, the conversation wasn’t awkward and no one pretended to have a family emergency to get away,” Bard replies, humour lacing his voice. “I think that qualifies as success.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Thranduil smiles, and again it’s a real smile, not the cynical smirk that appeared so often on his face. Bard feels his stomach do a somersault, but he doesn’t dare hope that they’ve been doing more than volleying playful banter back and forth. Despite their unexpected shared fates, Bard senses there’s a lot to divide them, money and status being the obvious choices. Thranduil reeks of upper class money and Bard barely knows what middle class is like. The man hasn’t got the air of a condescending toff, but posh he definitely is.

“I hope you’re coming back for the excellent coffee,” Bard grins.

“Perhaps for more than the coffee,” Thranduil smirks. “But it _is_ excellent coffee, I have to agree.”

“I’ll see you soon, then.” Bard takes his leave, hurrying back to the counter under Sigrid’s scolding gaze.

* * *

Swarmed by customers, one of them complaining the milk isn’t frothed to his satisfaction until Bard gives him a new cappuccino, Bard doesn’t even notice Thranduil leaving. Once the stream of people dies off, he goes to clean up the tables, gathering dirty cups, plates and spoons and freeing the surfaces of crumbs and crumpled napkins. He takes Thranduil’s now empty cup from the table and finds a crisp tenner underneath the saucer, accompanied by an ivory business card with a bright green stripe.

Thranduil Orophersson  
Eryn Lasgalen Structure & Design  
020 7946 0778

So Thranduil is an architect, if he understands the card correctly? That is impressive, considering Bard had pegged him to be more one of the usual bank types that populated the city. He turns the card around to find 07700 900579 written in blue fountain pen on the backside. Thranduil left him his mobile number. Does that mean he wants Bard to contact him? 

Bard turns the card in his fingers, pensive. Then he puts it in the front pocket of his flannel shirt, careful not to crumple its edges.

* * *

“Are you going to tell me what that ‘date’ thing was or do I have to pull teeth?” Sigrid asks after they’ve locked up and sent Percy home to his wife and newborn baby.

She’s loading up the dishwasher while Bard mops up the counter, suddenly becoming much more interested in the coffee stain he’s scrubbing at.

“Nothing, really,” Bard mumbles. “Nothing for you to worry over, darling.”

“Daaa,” Sigrid sighs, making the exasperated noise she seems to have inherited from her mother. 

“I’m serious,” Bard bristles. “Really, Sigrid. The man got stood up and we joked about it because his son set him up to it and would be disappointed that it hadn’t happened. I offered to have a cuppa with him, so he could tell his son he’s had coffee with someone and wouldn’t have to lie about it. That’s all.”

“You looked like you got on well,” Sigrid says, probing further.

Bard shrugs. “He was nice. We’ve a few things in common, single dad and all.”

“Da, you know it’s alright if you want to go out with someone?” Sigrid asks, putting down the tea towel she’d been holding. “I’m not going to think you’re cheating on Mum or anything. And I don’t care if it’s a man.”

“I know,” Bard smiles, grateful for the reassurance, not knowing he had needed it until now. “But still, I don’t think there’s anything going to happen. Unfortunately, a relationship needs more than thinking the other is nice and looks good.”

Sigrid turns to refill the grinders with fresh beans, sensing that her old man was reluctant to come forward with information. “Okay, I’m just saying. If you want to date, don’t hold back on our account.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

It would be nice if his daughter’s approval were all that’s needed to disperse his uncertainty.


	2. I think, therefore I've had my coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil comes back for more (coffee) and Bard may indadvertedly have played cupid, much to Legolas' dismay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t even know what do to with all the enthusiasm the first chapter received. I’m not used to such attentions directed at me and everyone has been so lovely! Thank you all ♥
> 
> Back during writing this fic, I wanted to have a playlist to go with it – the kind of songs Bard would play in his café, but alas, my overall taste in music is not suitable for these things. ~~I don’t suppose _Impulse to Disembowel_ goes well with cappuccino?~~ So for the time being, I recommend listening to this café noise in the background. Enable 'street-corner café' at the top left and you'll have what I listened to a lot whilst writing ;)

The following week crawls by in a slog of caffeine-hungry students, artsy hipsters and the occasional city type. During the day Bard doesn’t think much about Thranduil; he’s got too much to do to even sit down until he gets home. Thranduil’s card is burning a hole in his bedside drawer where Bard stares at it for a couple of minutes before going to sleep, thinking about sending a text, but never actually doing it. What do you text the guy you don’t know very well but might possibly fancy? He doesn’t have anyone to ask these things (whatever best mates he used to have got lost in the maelstrom of an ill wife and single fatherhood) and after a few days, it seems silly to get in touch. Thranduil will surely have come to the conclusion that Bard isn’t interested, even though Bard wouldn’t be able to say whether that’s true. If he’s being honest, fear is probably a bigger factor than a lack of interest – who in their right mind wouldn’t be drawn to an intelligent, gorgeous man like Thranduil?

“Is there still any Americano left?” Bard hears a familiar deep voice in front of him while he hands a young girl an Eiskaffee.

“Thranduil,” Bard says.

“You sound surprised,” Thranduil smirks. “I said I’d be back for the coffee, at the very least, didn’t I?”

“Erm...yes,” Bard murmurs and knows he’s got a blush crawling up his neck. Suddenly he feels sheepish that he hasn’t talked to Thranduil at all. Exchanging a few words wouldn’t have hurt, no matter what came of it. Thranduil doesn’t look offended or hurt, but Bard doesn’t assume he knows Thranduil well enough to truly judge his mood. He has come back though, so Bard couldn’t have offended him too much, could he?

“So, about that Americano…”

“I’m sure I can throw something together,” Bard quips with amusement.

“Excellent,” Thranduil replies. “To go, please. I’m on my way to an irritating client and coffee is the only thing that will stop me from slapping his head from his shoulders.”

“Charming,” Bard snorts, already pouring water into the espresso. “Good luck with that.”

“Thank you,” Thranduil says and hands Bard his credit card in exchange for the paper cup.

Their whole exchange is over in less than two minutes and leaves Bard even more confused than before, absentmindedly stirring a small pot of milk on the stove. Thranduil didn’t acknowledge in any way that Bard hasn’t contacted him. Did he want to spare Bard any embarrassment or didn’t he care about it all that much? Was giving Bard his number a test? Good lord, now he’s starting to sound paranoid.

And now he’s burnt the milk, too.

* * *

Today, the weather outside is ghastly, there is no other word for it. The floodgates of Heaven seem to have opened, pouring down on Earth in a continuous onslaught of water and wind. Days like these are bad for business. There’s always a demand for coffee and tea, but people won’t go any further than necessary to get it. Bard can rely on the die-hard regulars, but walk-ins are sparse. No one is strolling around outside when it’s like this and suddenly, even for semi-regulars, the coffee maker in the office will start to look more attractive than usual.

Bard can’t say he’s worked himself to death today. Which is nice from a personal standpoint, but less so if one looks at the finances. Half the time, Sigrid played with her phone and Bard got bored enough to actually sort through his bills and establish a semblance of organisation. It’s ten minutes till closing time, Sigrid is already mopping the floor while Bard starts to wipe down the counter. Hopefully the patron saint of the service industry are merciful and don’t send anyone in at the last second. It happens every time he dares starting clean-up ahead of time.

The door chimes. Of course it does. Bard really hates this Murphy guy.

“Is it too late to get coffee?”

Or perhaps not. Not when it’s this voice asking for coffee – the baritone whose sound trickles like warm honey down his spine.

“No, come in,” Bard gestures for Thranduil to come over to the counter and he can feel Sigrid’s calculating gaze on them. She’s developed a habit of scrutinising Bard whenever Thranduil came in over the last two weeks. He’d picked up a quick take away order and left again, no more than a few sentences shared between them.

“I’ll go sweeping in the back,” Sigrid says, trying too hard to sound inconspicuous. She’s transparent in her attempt to establish privacy for Thranduil and him; the floor of the seating area is only mopped half of the way. But before Bard can call her out on it, Sigrid scurries off, bucket and mop in hand, soapy liquid sloshing over the rim in her hurry.

“Let me just lock up real quick and then I’ll get you your coffee fix,” Bard grins and grabs his keys from under the counter.

“Are you locking me in, Bard?” Thranduil asks, amusement tinging his voice.

“Correct,” Bard laughs. “But fear not, the gates shall open again. Do you want it to take away or drink it here?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Thranduil says. “You were about to close.”

“If you don’t mind us cleaning while you drink, you can stay if you like,” Bard offers. “It’s not an imposition.”

“Are you certain?”

“Just sit down,” Bard mock orders and points at the bar stools on the far left of the counter.

Thranduil arches an eyebrow, a smile pulling at his lips. Nevertheless, he takes a seat at the bar while Bard prepares Thranduil’s order.

“I’m…” Bard begins and fiddles with the dish cloth in his hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t contact you.” It sounds lame to his ears, but it’s the best he can do without tripping over his own words and making a fool of himself.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Thranduil says and Bard isn’t sure whether his smile falters for a second or not. “It’s not urgent.”

“Not urgent?”

“Legolas still has a few months before university starts,” Thranduil says.

Bard thinks he must be the biggest idiot to ever walk the planet. He forgot all about telling Thranduil that Gimli and Aragorn were looking for a new flatmate. That he offered to talk to them next time they were in and let Thranduil know. And he goes and thinks Thranduil left his card for some sort of dating purposes. God, he really is an idiot. The whole time he’s wondered why the man would be interested in him, no surprise he couldn’t figure it out – Thranduil _isn’t_ interested.

“They haven’t been in yet,” Bard says. A blatant lie, since Aragorn stopped by just yesterday. Bard can’t think of a better way to save face though and spare them both the embarrassment. “But they’re regulars. I’ll let you know when I see them.”

“Thank you,” Thranduil says.

Bard absentmindedly touches the back pocket of his jeans where Thranduil’s number rests between his credit card and his Oyster. He doesn’t acknowledge the twinge in his his ribcage. After all, he hasn’t contacted Thranduil in the first place, he doesn’t get to complain now that the man isn’t interested.

After Thranduil leaves, Sigrid very nearly beats him with the mop for being a coward.

* * *

[to: Thranduil, 15:23] Aragorn and Gimli are interested in meeting your son. theyll be here on friday at 3 if hes free.  
[to: Thranduil, 15:24] Its Bard from the cafe btw.

At the last one, Bard cringes again. So much for writing a nonchalant message. 

[from: Thranduil, 15:46] Hello Bard from the café. Legolas should be free at that time. Thank you.

Cheeky man. Bard sends the next message before he loses his nerve.

[to: Thranduil, 16:05] youre welcome. will you be there too?  
[from: Thranduil, 16:08] If I can make it. I wouldn’t want to miss the coffee.  
[to: Thranduil, 16:22] and a chance to spy on your sons potential flatmates?  
[from: Thranduil, 16:23] Yes.  
[to: Thranduil, 16:27] ill have the americano ready.  
[from: Thranduil, 17:09] In this weather, I’d prefer something cold, I think.  
[to: Thranduil, 17:11] ever tried vietnamese iced coffee? its great  
[from: Thranduil, 17:15] Can you make it vegan?  
[to: Thranduil, 17:22] definitely  
[from: Thranduil, 17:40] Then I’ll have that.

So, Thranduil is a vegan. Bard squirrels the nugget of knowledge away in his mind and feels pleased to have learnt something new about the man. The friendly banter is something Bard could get used to.

[to: Thranduil, 17:44] i recommend a slice of banana bread with it. its vegan.  
[from: Thranduil, 17:57] Sounds good. I’m looking forward to it. 

Damn. He needs to get over this confused schoolboy crush he’s developing before he says or does something stupid. No man his age should be this giddy over a few text messages.

* * *

As far as Bard can tell, the meeting between the three boys is going well. At least Aragorn and Legolas seem to be hitting it off right away while Gimli seems to reserve judgement. Legolas doesn’t look deterred by Gimli’s gruff demeanor – more playful, really. 

Even if Thranduil hadn’t accompanied Legolas, the relation would have been obvious. They look so alike, it’s almost eerie. Even their hairstyle is the same. Legolas is not quite as tall as his father, but that seems to be the only obvious physical difference. Based on his first impression, Bard thinks Legolas is more outgoing and friendlier – interacting with two strangers doesn’t seem to put him off.

Legolas isn’t only accompanied by Thranduil though, there’s another man in tow. For a moment, Bard feared Thranduil brought a date, then he thought it might be a relative since he also has long blond hair. An introduction at the bar later, Bard is pacified. The man goes by the name of Haldir and is Thranduil’s assistant. Thranduil relocated their daily meeting to the café to keep an eye on Legolas (he firmly resists the term spying).

“Your coffee must be magic if the boss is willing to conduct business in a café,” Haldir laughs as Bard hands him a cappuccino. “I’ve been trying to lure him out of the office for years.”

“You’re welcome to camp out whenever you want,” Bard says and winks while Thranduil rolls his eyes.

The day is busy, but Bard has help from Hilda and Percy who serve the customers while Bard cleans up, refills the sugar sachets and fixes the creaky hinges on one of the cupboards. All the while, he keeps an eye on his two points of interest: the three boys still caught up in an animated discussion about sports (the merits of football as compared to rugby) and the two adults at his bar shuffling through papers and pointing at tablet computers. Now and then, Thranduil observes his son over a stack of paper, pinning particularly Gimli with his gaze. Legolas however seems intent to ignore his father’s presence (not surprising to Bard – most eighteen-year-olds wouldn’t be too excited to have their father as a chaperone). There is one pair of eyes that flicks over to Thranduil and Haldir again and again: Aragorn. And Bard is pretty sure it’s Haldir Aragorn is eyeing up. He even looks away furtively when Haldir looks over to their table and smiles at him. 

Ah, to be young again and develop crushes so easily. 

Bard makes it a point not to look at Thranduil upon that thought. 

The lads speak for another half hour before they get up and shake hands. Aragorn and Legolas do at least, Gimli still has his arms crossed before his chest but he doesn’t look quite as grumpy as an hour ago. Aragorn and Gimli take their leave while Legolas strolls over to the counter, exchanging a look with Haldir.

“You’re Mr. Bowman, right?” Legolas asks as he comes to a halt next to Haldir.

“Yes, but call me Bard.”

Legolas offers Bard his hand and he shakes it. “Then I’ll have to thank you for getting me in touch with Aragorn and Gimli. My father said you set it up.”

“You’re welcome,” Bard smiles. “How did it go?”

“I’m not sure Gimli likes me very much, but he agreed to let me see the room,” Legolas grins and Bard has to laugh at that.

“Coming from Gimli, that’s a lot,” he chuckles. “He was giving Aragorn a headache with all his rejections.”

“He said as much,” Legolas says and Haldir gives him a congratulatory cuff on the shoulder.

“Well done,” he grins. “Your old man will have to let you move out after all.”

“Speaking of the old man,” Legolas says and looks over his shoulder. Thranduil had excused himself to the bathroom just two minutes ago. With his father nowhere in sight, Legolas fixes Bard with a sharp blue gaze. Just like his father in that regard, it seems. “I need to ask you: did you two _really_ have a date? Or was he just blowing me off?

“Oh my God, _you_ were the ominous date?” Haldir asks and sets down his cup so hard, the hot liquid sloshes over the rim to collect in a pool on the saucer. “I thought he was lying.”

“Wow, he really doesn’t go out much, does he?” Bard asks and quirks an eyebrow.

“Are you kidding?” Legolas sighs. “He hasn’t gone out a single time since we moved here. Or when he does, it’s for business.”

“Bloody hermit,” Haldir grumbles and Legolas nods.

“Well, he wasn’t lying,” Bard says and tries to sound nonchalant about it. It doesn’t look like the two know Bard was only a backup for Thranduil’s actual date but he won’t tell them that. He’s not about to embarrass himself and Thranduil while the man isn’t even there.

Legolas and Haldir both look impressed. “I’m not looking for the gory details, but did it go well?” Haldir asks, curiosity piqued.

“Hard to say,” Bard evades. “I think it did. We got on quite well.”

“Are you going to see each other again?” Legolas probes further.

“I don’t know,” Bard says. He doesn’t want to see Legolas disappointed, but he doesn’t want to lie to him either. “We never agreed to anything.” That was true enough. Legolas pulls a face, but he doesn’t look surprised. Neither does Haldir.

“A word of advice from me, and I’m sure Legolas will agree, Thranduil is a disaster zone in terms of emotions,” Haldir mutters. “Don’t let the ice prince act scare you.”

Legolas sighs and rolls his eyes – the face of an exasperated person. Bain gets that face whenever he has to explain his father for the tenth time how to install an app or how to recover an accidentally deleted email.

“He’s coming back,” Legolas warns Haldir and orders a soy caramel macchiato. 

“So?” Thranduil asks his son as he takes his seat.

“I’m going to have a look at the room tomorrow,” Legolas says and stirs additional sugar into his coffee. “If that goes well, chances are good I can move in next month.”

“Tomorrow’s my day off, you want me to tag along?” Haldir asks.

“Since when do you agree to do anything on your days off?” Legolas retorts, watching the other with suspicion.

“My, so mistrustful,” Haldir grins. “Can’t I just want to help a friend without an ulterior motive?”

“You have an ulterior motive for everything,” Legolas mutters and narrows his eyes at Haldir while Thranduil feigns interest in his tablet and pushes his cup towards Bard, silently asking for another.

“Alright, maybe I want to see your handsome new friend again.” The look on Haldir’s face, Bard can only describe as a mixture of amused and predatory.

“Aragorn?” Legolas groans. “Please, don’t shag my potential new flatmate for a lark.”

“Hey, he was staring at me,” Haldir protests. “I’m simply not letting an opportunity go to waste.”

“Can’t you shag someone your own age?” Legolas grumbles. 

“I’m only twenty-six,” Haldir snorts. “We’re the same age group, junior.”

“Oh, sod off.”

Thranduil looks at Bard, eyebrow arched with amusement. Bard grins at him while Legolas and Haldir bicker some more and somehow, Haldir manages to badger Legolas into letting him come along to the flat. Well, if not Bard himself, at least Aragorn might get lucky.

* * *

Bard can’t quite forget what Haldir and Legolas said to him the day before. He’s working shampoo into Tilda’s hair while she uses two Lego figures to re-enact a dramatic underwater mission in Atlantis in the tub. It concerns Poseidon and...someone. Bard lost the plot somewhere in the third act when Tilda created a ‘monster wave’ that sent soapy water all over the bathroom floor. And now he’s too busy thinking about Thranduil.

The thing is, Bard really wants to speak to him, even if it’s just about mundane details like an irritating customer or a new vegan cake recipe. He’s refrained from contacting Thranduil, and not just because of the misunderstanding with the phone number. Thranduil doesn’t really give off any indication whether he’d be bothered if Bard texted him. Based on what Legolas and Haldir said, Thranduil isn’t the type to establish contact, even if he would want to.

Perhaps Bard should just write and see. What’s the worst Thranduil could do? Bard thinks they could be friends, in a fashion, if Thranduil isn’t interested in anything romantic. God knows he could use a friend his age, even if it wasn’t going to be the kind of mate who’d have a pint with you. Coffee seems more likely in their case. Not that Bard would mind.

Bard tells Tilda to shield her eyes and pours water over her head. As usual, she complains about the shampoo stinging, but at least Bard can convince her to get out of the tub before she turns into a raisin. She even goes to bed without a fuss. Bain is already in his room, but it’s still an hour before it’s lights out for him. Sigrid is watching telly in the living room, some cooking competition that sounds like it has Gordon Ramsay swearing in the background. Bard doesn’t police her bedtime anymore as long as she turns off the light at a halfway decent hour.

He grabs a beer from the fridge and sits down at the kitchen table, taking his mobile from his pocket.

[to: Thranduil, 21:06] how did legolas viewing go?

It sounds like a good way to start a conversation – an innocent follow-up to the meeting Bard made possible.

[from: Thranduil, 21:07] He says it went well. Aragorn thinks Gimli could be convinced to let Legolas have the room.  
[to: Thranduil, 21:08] sounds good. even with haldir molesting aragorn?  
[from: Thranduil, 21:09] It seems the advances were not unwanted. Apparently Haldir left the building with a phone number. He’ll be unbearably smug on Monday.  
[to: Thranduil, 21:12] my condolences.  
[from: Thranduil, 21:13] Thank you.  
[to: Thranduil, 21:16] ill be happy to provide caffeine to compensate for your troubles.  
[from: Thranduil, 21:18] Can I convince you to add some of your banana bread to it?  
[to: Thranduil, 21:20] you drive a hard bargain mister. but i think i can be persuaded to include a slice.  
[From: Thranduil, 21:21] Will it include your company at my table, too? Without customers interrupting our conversation.  
[To: Thranduil, 21:22] if you come in when im off duty  
[From: Thranduil, 21:24] Pray tell, when *are* you off duty?  
[To: Thranduil, 21:25] im off wednesday round 3 pm  
[From: Thranduil, 21:28] I could be there by four  
[To: Thranduil, 21:30] Suits me. ill see you then.  
[From: Thranduil, 21:31] I’m looking forward to it.

Is that a date? An actual one? Or are they meeting as friends? Great, he’s just as confused now as he was before.


	3. I smell like coffee and bad decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bard and Thranduil are moving one step forward and two steps back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once more for the warm reception of last week's chapter ♥ This week, we are approaching the territory of the higher rating. The boys are finally getting somewhere, though it rather looks like running head first into a wall...

The coffee meetings, on and off duty, become a semi-regular fixture. It’s mostly one or both of them losing track of time once they get talking and it ends with someone dragging Bard back to the counter by the scruff of his neck (Hilda, mostly) or someone else calling Thranduil to remind him of his schedule (Haldir, always). Once or twice, Haldir resorts to sending Thranduil’s poor secretary (whose name always eludes Bard, Melu-something) over to make sure their boss doesn’t skip an unpleasant meeting.

Bard tries hard to keep the muddle of his feelings at bay and only regard the other as a new friend he’s made. There are still times when he thinks Thranduil might be flirting with him and Bard can’t not flirt back on these occasions. 

Haldir and Legolas have taken to stopping by for coffee or tea occasionally as well and both like to bug Bard about his and Thranduil’s ‘progress’. Bard keeps insisting there isn’t any (true enough) and that they’re merely friends (true-ish? Bard really doesn’t know what to qualify them as). Legolas has received the grudging approval of Gimli to move in, or in the boy’s own words, Gimli had decreed ‘that blondie is the best of a bad lot,’ but he insists that he reserves the right to ‘kick him out on his posh arse if he does anything funny.’ What constitutes ‘funny’ isn’t quite clear, but it doesn’t look like it includes having your friends seduce the third flatmate. Because that’s exactly what Haldir has done (and continues to do) to Aragorn. Both Thranduil and Legolas complain about having to suffer the proximity of a new couple, and father and son constantly try to prove one of them’s got it worse than the other. Legolas insists he gets bonus points for experiencing them together while Thranduil only has to deal with Haldir. Thranduil insists it’s all Legolas’ fault since he is responsible that Aragorn and Haldir met in the first place. This harmless bickering amuses Bard, it reminds him of his own family.

He gets to know Thranduil well enough to pick up on it when the man comes in shortly before closing time one evening and looks – morose, for want of a better word. A bit lost, too. It’s different from his mood when he’s had a tiring day and even more tiring clients. Bard wrestles with himself for a moment whether or not he should ask about it, if it’s his place to do so. But they’ve become close, in a way. Hell, they speak about their dead wives, a sour mood surely ranks below that.

“If you don’t mind me asking: Are you alright?” Bard speaks up as he serves him a regular espresso instead of his usual Americano. Percy already did most of the clean up before closing, leaving Bard only to wipe the counter and taking care of the machines.

For a moment, Thranduil looks like he’s not going to answer or considers brushing Bard off. “It’s nothing, really,” he murmurs and studies the surface of the tiny espresso spoon with far more interest than it warrants.

Bard wonders if he should pursue the matter. Clearly, it’s _something_ , but Bard in the end is only the guy who serves Thranduil coffee and has a chat with him. They’re not best mates or lovers who are privy to each other’s feelings. And yet Bard wants to be the one to make that frown go away. Damn him and his emotional mess. Elke used to say that wearing his heart on his sleeve is his best and his worst quality.

“Legolas moved out yesterday evening,” Thranduil finally says, just loud enough for Bard to hear.

“Ah,” Bard says and pulls a face. “Sorry, that must be strange.” As a fellow single father, Bard already dreads the day when his kids will move out. And while Sigrid will probably do so as soon as university calls next year (she dreams of going to university in Ireland and has been saving up for it for three years), he still has Bain and Tilda to keep him company for a while longer. Thranduil only has Legolas.

“It’s silly,” Thranduil says, sounding like he’s chiding himself. “I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea. And it’s not as if we’ve spent every waking hour together before.”

‘“Still,” Bard shrugs. “Hammers home the fact your kids aren’t quite kids anymore. I moped for a whole day when I realised last year that Sigrid gets along just fine without me. And she isn’t even going to university yet.”

Thranduil hums in agreement and downs his espresso. “I considered getting drunk after work, but one of your coffees sounded like a better choice. Drinking in my office alone would be somewhat pathetic.”

“If you ever need a drinking buddy, I’m your man,” Bard offers with a grin. “I probably don’t have your palate, but I used to be very good at holding my liquor.”

“I had drunkenness in mind, not a whiskey tasting,” Thranduil smirks and slides over a couple of coins for his espresso. “But if you’re interested, I have a bottle of excellent Suntory Hibiki whiskey stashed in my office.”

“The quarter Scotsman in me should be offended that you drink Japanese whiskey,” Bard chuckles. “But I will accept nonetheless. Give me ten minutes to finish up.”

Fifteen minutes later, they’re in a cab headed to Canary Wharf and Bard watches Millennium Park bleed into Mile End Park outside his window. He’s called Sigrid, who doesn’t mind herding her siblings to bed and tells him to ‘have fun for once.’ Bard isn’t sure how much fun he’ll have, given that his stomach is dancing rumba and his heart has relocated to his throat. This is different. It’s the first time they’ve left the little bubble that is Bard’s café. Sure, they’ve communicated via text quite a bit lately, but any personal interaction happened in the café. And it’s not even like they’re going out to a bar, they’re headed to Thranduil’s office where they’ll be alone with a bottle of whiskey. Bard may have been fibbing when he said he can hold his liquor. 

“Your office is in Canary Wharf, but you live in Richmond?” Bard asks, surprised that Thranduil chooses to live so far away from work. They’re basically at different ends of London; the commute every morning must be hell.

“I considered buying a flat in Canary Wharf after Legolas moves out, but I don’t actually want to live there,” Thranduil says. “I like Richmond.”

Based on what Thranduil has said about his home in Richmond, Bard would like living there, too. Apparently, it’s right at the edge of the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Old Deer Park. Lots of green and space to stroll through. Thranduil has a particular fondness for the deer park, he says. You won’t find many deer in Canary Wharf, that’s for sure.

“Isn’t getting to work and back each day a pain?” Bard asks. “I only have a short commute and still I regularly feel the need to murder someone.”

“I travel off-peak,” Thranduil says. “That makes the Tube nearly tolerable.”

“You take the Tube to work?” Bard sounds incredulous; he can’t really picture Thranduil in his crisp three-piece-suits reading a book on the Underground. Sure, pretty much everyone uses public transport in London, even the rich folks, but Thranduil has a ten-foot personal space bubble around him. And there is no such thing as personal space on a crammed eastbound train at nine in the morning.

“I’m not driving a car through central London traffic,” Thranduil scoffs. “I’m not mad.”

Fair enough. The only thing worse than a crammed Tube car is attempting to drive in London. Bard has a licence, but he hasn’t driven a car for at least fifteen years. His wife, who’d grown up in London (even if the un-British name suggests otherwise – it’s her German gran’s name), never even sat behind the wheel. They’d taken cabs to the hospital for the births of their kids. So this is the fourth time for Bard to be in a black cab, and the first time for him to be on his way to have a drink with the friend he may have feelings for and is definitely attracted to. No one with a working pair of eyes could deny that Thranduil is stunning, and Bard has noticed that he is even more so during the night. Moonlight flatters Thranduil’s sharp features in a way the sun can’t match. Not that Thranduil needs either to be gorgeous.

Thranduil insists on paying the fare and leads Bard into a tower of glass, steel and wood. Only a small sign at the entrance identifies the building as Eryn Lasgalen, Thranduil’s company. Bard ogles the building like a tourist does Big Ben. He deliberately hasn’t googled Thranduil or asked what buildings he designed, simply because he feared swooning with awe. If a massive thing like this is just his office building, the place he chooses to represent himself, Bard is really afraid to ask about Thranduil’s work now. And if there’s ever a time to feel scruffy and unrefined, now would be good. Thranduil waves some sort of ID at the night porter who lets them pass into the foyer.

“Shit…that’s your building?” Bard’s jaw is somewhere on the floor at this point, the foyer is spacious and airy and packed with plants. In its centre, a minimalist fountain of lava stone gurgles softly. Even in the dim lighting it’s impressive.

“Yes,” Thranduil answers and presses the button for the lift. “Well, I own half of it. I have a partner of sorts, Celeborn. He’s an architect, too, but we work separately. Eryn Lasgalen is a collective, so to say. We share resources and co-own subsidiaries, like the landscaping firm or the renewable energy department who also reside in the building. Haldir is his nephew.”

“But I thought Haldir worked for you?”

Thranduil smirks. “He does. Celeborn wasn’t too pleased about me hiring him from under his nose, but it’s hardly my fault I’m better at recognising talent.”

“Sounds like a lovely partnership you have there,” Bard deadpans and steps into the lift.

“It serves its purpose,” Thranduil hums and slots a key next to the panel before he pushes the topmost button.

Bard decides not to inquire further into Thranduil’s business partnership. It doesn’t sound like it’s too pleasant a topic and Bard would rather not turn the mood gloomy. 

Thranduil’s office is an extension of the wood-and-glass theme outside, the colours ranging from walnut to sand beige and washed stone grey. Ninety percent of the floor seems to be made of ceiling-high windows, it must be hot as hell in summer. There’s an arrangement of leather sofas (or faux leather, more likely) for entertaining guests, but the centrepiece is an enormous desk formed of metal and wood and Bard doesn’t even know how it’s standing up. It almost looks like it’s floating. An array of cacti and other desert plants lines up along a wall, the cases in which they sit climbing up like a set of stairs. The cases serve as lamps, too, soaking the room in a soft golden glow. 

Bard feels hopelessly out of place. Thranduil’s office is that sort of understatement only the filthy rich can achieve. He’s not flaunting expensive art pieces or antiques in your face, but every panel of wood and glass oozes money. It’s pretty much taking a baseball bat to all of his idle fantasies about Thranduil and himself. How would they go together? Bard tries to imagine Thranduil in his cramped, dingy little flat with the leaky faucet in the kitchen and the power outages that happen when you plug in the hair dryer while the telly is on. Or picturing Thranduil sipping PG Tips from a chipped mug sitting on their old, mismatched furniture. The image is hysterical, and not in the good way.

“Have a seat,” Thranduil says, carrying two glasses and a bottle of whiskey over to the sofas. He’s done away with his suit jacket, leaving him in a white dress shirt and a dove grey waistcoat. Bard follows him, thinking that he should at least enjoy the no doubt fine beverage Thranduil offers. At least it might make him stop feeling sorry for himself.

The whiskey is indeed excellent, but Bard only admits it after glass number two. His Scottish grandfather is probably spinning in his grave at the very idea, but Bard thinks the Japanese might just make better whiskey than the Scotsmen. And it serves well to loosen both their tongues, particularly Thranduil’s who is in a mood to reminiscence about Legolas. His first word was ‘cheese’, curiously enough, given that Thranduil raised his son as a vegan. At fourteen, Legolas’ chosen form of rebellion was becoming a carnivore, but that lasted about two months before he came crawling back to almond milk and tempeh, Thranduil recounted with unconcealed amusement. When they first moved to London, Legolas started pretending he didn’t know any English and resolutely used Icelandic in school until the teachers got onto him and realised he was just acting. Legolas hadn’t wanted to move away and still goes back to Iceland during summer holidays to stay with his maternal grandparents and visit Thranduil’s mother, even though he’s come to regard London as his home. Thranduil hasn’t set foot onto Icelandic soil ever since he got on the plane to England.

With a bit of alcohol in him, Thranduil smiles more easily, Bard notices. He smiles when he speaks of Legolas’ achievements in archery, obviously proud of his son. The walks in the Old Deer Park, observing the animals, that makes him smile, too. And if he’s not in the park, he prefers to spend the day in the private library in his house. The thought of a private library makes Bard turn green with envy – he loves to read and his books are in haphazard stacks under his bed because there’s no space and the landlord doesn’t want him to drill holes to put up shelves. It sucks. Thranduil won’t have that sort of problem, he probably owns a fancy house he designed himself from top to bottom. If the office is anything to go by, his house will look like it was lifted off the pages of a magazine and Bard would be afraid to touch anything for fear of disturbing it.

It’s not the sort of thing Bard wants to dwell on right now, the buzz from the whiskey is far too good to be wasted on whiney inner monologues. He can save those for the hangover tomorrow. He directs the conversation back to the kids, mentioning that Bain has shown an interest in football lately and that Tilda now wants to be an artist when she grows up.

“You’ve never seen them, have you?” Bard asks and pulls his phone from his pocket. He’s often spoken about Bain and Tilda, but Thranduil has only ever seen Sigrid in the café. 

“No,” Thranduil concedes and leans over while Bard opens the latest pictures. Really, he isn’t too fast on the uptake about modern technology, but he does love smartphones. And he takes far too many pictures with them, as Sigrid tells him with that eye roll specially reserved for teenagers. 

“That’s Tilda on her latest artistic adventure,” Bard chuckles and shows Thranduil a photo of Tilda covered nearly head to toe in blue and yellow finger paint. Some of it even got onto the cardboard she was supposed to paint. She grins into the camera with a sheepish expression, the gap in her front teeth showing. “And actually, it wasn’t body painting, no matter what it looks like.”

Thranduil chuckles. “She looks a lot like her sister,” he muses. “Perhaps she’s a future performance artist.”

“Sigrid and Tilda look a lot like their mother, thank god,” Bard snorts. “I fear Bain might take after me though.” He swipes over the screen and Tilda’s picture changes into Bain lying in the patch of grass outside their house, the neighbour’s ginger cat snoozing on his chest.

“That’s not at all a bad thing,” Thranduil says softly and all of a sudden, Bard becomes aware of just how close the man is. Thranduil’s long hair is brushing Bard’s shoulder as he leans over and Bard can smell his cologne more than ever. Sandalwood, thyme and more he can’t identify. His mouth runs dry.

“No?” Bard aims for nonchalant, but it ends up being more of an undignified squeak. He can feel the tips of his ears burning while a smirk creeps back onto Thranduil’s face.

“No,” the other says and before Bard knows what’s happening, Thranduil’s lips are on his, nearly making him drop his phone.

Alcohol makes Thranduil bolder, it seems. His mouth is warm and insistent; nibbling, teasing and soothing all at the same time – even while Bard is still recovering from the shock of it. It eclipses everything Bard conjured up in the solitude of his bedroom when he allowed his thoughts to wander a bit. Just when Thranduil makes to move back, Bard stops his brain from leaking out from his ears and snaps into action. His phone drops onto the cushions, pictures forgotten as he digs his fingers into Thranduil’s waistcoat and pulls him closer, eager now to have as little space as possible between them. Moments later, he’s greeted with a lapful of Thranduil, his thighs splayed over Bard’s and pressing him firmly into the backrest. Thranduil’s hair falls around them like a curtain and Bard wants to bury his hands in the platinum cascade. He settles for Thranduil’s waist instead, squeezing the firm buttocks under his hands. It must read like an encouragement for Thranduil who presses closer still while his fingers skirt into the open collar of Bard’s shirt, rubbing over the collarbone. With the incessant grinding of Thranduil’s groin against his own, Bard’s dick springs to life faster than it has any right to considering his approaching middle age and complete lack of love life. It strains against the confines of Bard’s jeans and he has to groan against Thranduil’s mouth whenever the man’s hand or erection seek out the bulge that’s formed under the denim. Thranduil’s other hand has taken to unbuttoning another two buttons on Bard’s shirt, giving him access to Bard’s nipples. He rubs and teases the sensitive flesh, plucking the moans and whimpers from Bard’s lips with insistent kisses.

After so many years of being very nearly celibate, Bard’s head reels with the sensory input and alcohol. By god, he wants Thranduil and Thranduil seems to want him, too. Unless it’s the alcohol prompting Thranduil to let go, no matter who it’s with. Would they be doing this if they weren’t tanked?

“Wait,” Bard groans and breaks the kiss.

Thranduil’s hands still on Bard’s belt buckle. “Is something wrong?” he asks, and now Bard notices a hint of a slur in his speech. 

“Is this wise?” Bard asks, moving his hands from Thranduil’s arse to rest on his thighs. “We’re both completely pissed and we’re friends, for god’s sake.”

“You’re clearly not drunk enough if you can still come up with moral dilemmas,” Thranduil replies. He looks like he wants to challenge Bard’s decision to abort, but in the end, he doesn’t move. “We both want this, or am I wrong?”

“No,” Bard hurries to explain. “I do. I want you, but I don’t think a drunken quickie does it justice.”

For a long moment, Thranduil doesn’t say a word, just observes Bard’s face. “Mhm. Perhaps you’re right,” he says, finally, but his tone doesn’t betray anything except neutrality. The expression on his face doesn’t give away much either; Thranduil doesn’t look irritated or angry. It makes Bard nervous. Thranduil lets go of Bard’s belt buckle and busies himself with rebuttoning Bard’s shirt. After that, he scoots from Bards lap and pats down his rumpled suit, but makes no real effort to tuck the shirt back in properly. 

The atmosphere in the room is awkward, their aborted attempt at having a romp on the very sofa Thranduil receives clients on looming over them like a thundercloud. What does one say after nearly humping someone’s brains out? Bard is nearing forty and has never had to ponder that question. He settles for strategic retreat.

“I guess I should get home,” he says. “I’ve got to be up at six thirty to send the kids to school.”

“Of course,” Thranduil nods. “Let me call you a cab.”

“I’ll take the night bus.”

“Don’t be silly,” Thranduil chides. “That would take forever. Where do you live?”

“…Homerton.”

“That’s over an hour away, at the very least,” Thranduil says and looks at him with a stern gaze.

Bard sighs. “Let me put it this way: I can’t afford to take a cab back home.” For a guy like Thranduil, who probably wouldn’t have to worry about a cab fare from London for Glasgow, you sometimes need to spell things out.

“I’d pay, of course,” Thranduil waves Bard’s protest away like an irritating fly. “I invited you here. The least I can do is make sure you get home.”

“There’s really no need.” Taking large tips from Thranduil is one thing, but he’s not having him pay for Bard’s travel expenses. It’s not like Thranduil dragged him to his office, Bard came willingly.

“Bard, I can write it off as a company expense.” Thranduil says it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “No need for you to worry about it.”

As it turns out, taking a cab home is much nicer than taking the night bus and having to change three times. Less chance of getting mugged, too – Bard has no illusions about the state of his current home district. It’s a fairly poor one (which is why Bard could afford the rent), though not a complete dump. The security lock in his front door is finicky again, it takes a bit of rattling and well-aimed knocks to let him turn the key and get inside. Inside the flat it’s dark and quiet. At least the kids have been sensible and gone to bed at hopefully a halfway decent hour. Bard creeps past their bedroom doors into the kitchen, thinking to fetch a beer from the fridge and settling for making tea instead. He’s had half a bottle of whiskey, extra alcohol is not what he needs. 

For the whole of the ride, he’s wondered if he made the right decision, stopping Thranduil. He had the man where he really wanted him: in his lap and against his crotch. Thranduil is the very definition of gorgeous; what mad idiot would say no when presented with such an opportunity? But what if they’d done it? Got off in Thranduil’s office like a pair of horny teenagers? Both of them were drunk and in no state to make a decision like that, one that could influence their budding friendship (and Bard likes to think they’ve become friends). He wouldn’t want to lose Thranduil as a friend over a drunken shag in the man’s office, no matter how much Bard wanted to sleep with him. 

But it’s possible Bard already damaged their friendship by stopping Thranduil. Their goodbyes were awkward, neither of them mentioning how they would proceed from here. Or if they would proceed in the first place. Starting tomorrow, Thranduil might simply look for another café to frequent. 

Should he perhaps apologise to Thranduil? The mere idea sounds embarrassing to Bard. He stares at the Mr. Clever figure painted on the mug (it’s actually Bain’s, but Bard uses it more than his son does) as if expecting the cartoon to advise him on the matter. When none is forthcoming, Bard drains the last of his tea, rinses the mug and crawls into bed, not even bothering to brush his teeth. With his brain being as fuzzy as it is now, he won’t find any solution either way.

He hopes he won’t have too bad of a hangover in the morning, but he knows he should prepare for the worst.


	4. Size matters (no one wants a small cup of coffee)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil and Bard finally manage to have a somewhat meaningful conversation to sort themselves out, though talking isn't all they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about not posting a chapter last week! I wasn't feeling well and fell off the face of the earth for a bit. Thanks for your patience!
> 
> (Also, please note the rating change!)

Three days later, Bard still gags whenever anyone orders Irish Coffee. He hasn’t had a hangover this bad since his stag do, which tells him he’s definitely approaching middle age and that the days of drinking half a bottle of liquor and expecting not to feel it are over.

Bard hasn’t heard from Thranduil, but he hasn’t texted or called him either. Bard wouldn’t know what to say on the phone and yet he wants to speak to Thranduil. Are they still friends? Are they more? What if Thranduil came in, should he try and talk about it? Would he even come in anymore? If only Bard himself had any idea what he wants. He’s playing a constant game of Twenty Questions and is no closer to finding answers. Unfortunately, there’s no one he can really talk this through with, save for the imaginary Elke in his mind and Bard already knows she’d scoff at him and tell him to get over himself. Percy? They’ve become mates in all these years, sort of, but he’s not the kind of mate you’d go to with this. There’s Haldir, who’s taken to getting a coffee every weekend, but Bard doesn’t actually know him that well yet. Also, it’s a bit weird taking relationship advice from someone thirteen years your junior. Crikey, so his best advisor is the guy he needs advice for. Just brilliant.

He slams down a takeaway cup on the counter, the Matcha Latte spilling over the rim and the scalding hot milk over his hand.

“Fuck,” Bard hisses in rare display of frustration and runs over to the sink to cool his hand. Hilda takes over to keep the line going (how she does it alone, Bard will never know. She’s got to be magic.) while Bard lets cold water run over the reddened skin of his right hand.

“Are you alright?” asks the voice Bard wants to hear the most and the least at the moment.

“Thranduil,” Bard says, surprise evident. He hasn’t really thought the man would come back, but there he is, decked out in another designer outfit – that light blue cashmere jumper he wears under his black trench coat looks like it’s been handwoven by fair maidens (more likely fair trade in Thranduil’s case, but his point still stands: the man looks too ethereal for eight in the morning). “I–yes, I’m okay.”

“Make sure you get some ointment on it,” Thranduil says, pointedly ignoring Bard’s flustered behaviour. Small mercies.

“Not the first time I burnt myself,” Bard mutters and flexes his fingers. They’ve already grown numb under the cold water. Bard’s hands and forearms are littered with small cuts and burn scars, he’s accident prone (Bain calls him a klutz whenever he needs to fetch the first aid kit for his father) and managing a day without a scratch or bruise is always a miracle. Probably doesn’t happen to Thranduil; Bard’s willing to bet bruises wouldn’t even dare blooming on that pale skin. (Although he wouldn’t mind putting that theory to test with his mouth.)

The silence hangs heavy between them, Thranduil looks like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should. Bard is in no mood to help him along. That, and he isn’t sure if he really wants to hear what Thranduil has got to say.

“Would you be able to spare a few minutes?” Thranduil finally asks, face an expression of exactly nothing at all. 

Bard could say no and wouldn’t even be lying. Hilda juggles the register and orders like it’s nothing, but that doesn’t mean he should skip off. Though unlike him, Thranduil shows a smidgen of maturity and acknowledges there’s something they need to talk about.

“Hilda, can you--”

“Yes, yes,” she waves his obvious question away. “I’m fine here.”

“Cheers,” Bard smiles at her and motions for Thranduil to follow him. This is the sort of discussion you ought to have in private. “Let’s move this into the office.”

Thranduil slinks around the counter and follows Bard into the office. Which was a bad idea, because Bard’s office looks like a small scale guerrilla war has been waged in it. It’s a cramped affair of fifty square feet and contains a battered desk squeezed under the small window, an old olive green loveseat one too many clients spilled coffee on to remain in the café and a chipped black filing cabinet whose drawers creak (the topmost won’t open without brute force). Stacks of letters, receipts, notes, delivery slips and catalogues are stacked almost a foot high on the desk, on top of one stack balances an empty mug and a half-eaten egg sandwich. File folders are scattered on the floor next to the desk and one half of the loveseat, the rest is buried in boxes Bard piles up along one of the walls since he can’t remember to buy some shelves to organise them on. The computer monitor is littered with sticky notes going back over a year and the calendar pinned next to window announces is bold red letters the year 2009. On the far right of the windowsill sits a lonely potted plant gone dry and brown (there’s a few fag butts buried in a shallow grave in the pot for when Bard has been stress smoking) and Thranduil is staring right at it. Bard can see his eyebrows arching and goes back to wishing the earth might open up and swallow him whole. Bard has always known his office is a sorry mess but now that he’s been in Thranduil’s pristine and gleaming one, the embarrassment is off the charts. 

“I daresay your dracaena could use a bit of water,” Thranduil notes with dry amusement.

“You think so?” Bard snorts, glad that Thranduil has the tact to comment on the most negligible aspect of everything that’s wrong with the office. He has to kick the door shut twice before the lock clicks. Thranduil sits down on the ragged loveseat with only minimum inspection of the coffee stains while Bard leans against the desk, too antsy to sit down.

“We need to discuss the other night, I believe,” Thranduil says in his businesslike manner and Bard makes a noncommittal sound, which Thranduil seems to take as agreement. “Where do we stand?”

“I don’t know,” Bard mutters, knowing it isn’t at all helpful.

Thranduil arches one of his prominent eyebrows. “You stopped us. I assumed you had a reason.”

“Well, in my book it isn’t the best idea for two friends to shag when both are pissed as a newt,” Bard says with a shrug. He hopes he isn’t too presumptuous declaring them friends. “Could end up awkward.”

“But if they weren’t…” Thranduil trails off, looking expectantly at Bard.

“Then?” Bard isn’t taking the bait.

“Would it be a good idea for two friends to _shag_ without alcohol?” Ah, they have arrived at hypothetical friends now. Well, why not.

“If that’s what both friends want,” Bard plays the ball back into Thranduil’s field, hoping he’d pick it up.

“Do they?” Damn him. He’s beating around the bush as much as Bard is.

“I don’t know,” Bard sighs and looks at Thranduil. “Do you?”

Thranduil fiddles with his cuff, a momentary crack in the smooth veneer. “I think my intentions were fairly clear.”

“Not really,” Bard retorts and Thranduil looks at him with curiosity in his gaze. “I don’t have the foggiest what we are to each other: are we just friends? Would we be having an affair? Would we be in a relationship? Anywhere in between?”

Bard is crap at talking about his emotions, not wanting to be a burden to anyone, but he’s got a feeling it’s even harder for Thranduil who gives the outward impression of a glacier to those who don’t know him. Thranduil closes his eyes for a moment, probably gathering his thoughts.

“Bard, I value your friendship and if that’s all we are going to have, I’ll gladly take it,” Thranduil begins and chooses to look out of the window instead of looking at Bard. The bit of sunlight falling through the glass reflects off Thranduil’s platinum blonde hair, underlining just how out of place he looks in Bard’s rickety office. “I want you, but I don’t have relationships. Not long-term. It’s...complicated.”

He’s got a look of pain on his face Bard knows all too well. “I understand,” Bard says, and in a way, he does. It’s taken him a long time to even be ready to consider dating other people after Elke died. And he got to prepare (if there is such a thing as preparing for death) and –most important of all– he got closure. Thranduil hasn’t got that luxury.

“Perhaps you actually do,” Thranduil says with a sidelong glance and a sad smile. Bard retrains himself from taking Thranduil’s hand in his. “I know she’s gone, but…”

“It’s fine,” Bard says and squeezes next to Thranduil on the armrest. He takes Thranduil’s hand after all and rubs small circles on the skin with his thumb.

“So..?” Thranduil asks and for once, he’s the one looking unsure.

“I haven’t had a real relationship either since my wife died,” Bard says, looking at their entwined hands. “Between the kids and this café, I wouldn’t even know where to fit in a new partner. And I haven’t had any casual affairs since my late teens, so I’m all-around rusty. But…”

“But?” Thranduil prompts.

“But I don’t think I could take it just being your friend,” Bard chuckles. “I’d succumb to a severe case of blue balls. Because I’ll be damned if you haven’t turned my head.” 

It’s unexpected, but Thranduil laughs. Bard has only seen him do it once or twice in the time they’ve known each other. He should do it more often, it suits him.

“We can’t have that,” Thranduil says with an amused glance at Bard’s crotch. “If I wouldn’t have to get to the office soon, I’d propose we take care of it right away.”

“I’m not having sex in a shitty office with a broken lock and an employee within earshot,” Bard snorts.

“Spoilsport.”

“I like to call it sane.”

“Of course.” The humour in Thranduil’s voice is still evident. “I will call you later.”

Thranduil unwinds his hand from Bard’s grasp and unfolds from the couch to his full height. “I’ll see you soon,” he says and kisses Bard goodbye. And what a kiss. There’s enough tongue and teeth in it to nearly sway Bard’s refusal of office sex. Thranduil has mercy though and leaves Bard off the hook before he’s robbed him of all common sense. 

Bard remains on the loveseat, slightly dazed and with his jeans tented. Thranduil closes the office door with a self-satisfied smile.

Smug Icelandic bastard.

* * *

Thranduil does indeed call him later, just after Bard’s sent the last kid to bed and gets onto loading the dishwasher – again. Tilda, bless her, wanted to help and put the dirty dishes away. Somehow, she managed to take up the entire space in the machine with three bowls, four mugs, and four plates. He hoists the mobile between his shoulder and head, trying not to get the grease from the shepherd’s pie all over his hands. 

“Hey there,” he says, rearranging the cutlery in the basket Tilda put in upside down.

“Bard,” Thranduil says by way of greeting. It’s quiet in the background, no telltale sounds where he’s at. “We should meet tomorrow.”

Thranduil really isn’t one for idle chit-chat. “Tomorrow already?” Bard asks, surprised he’d be called upon so soon.

“There will be a very long and very irritating finance meeting taking up most of my day. I could use something nice to think about. Keeping my spirits up, as they say.”

“Finance sounds dreadfully boring,” Bard agrees. He hates going through the finances with Hilda, but she makes him. Bard hasn’t got a clue about bookkeeping, but Hilda used to be an accountant before she joined Elke at the café and has been doing the books for a fraction of what it would cost Bard to let his tax advisor do it. Though he narrowly keeps dodging being beaten to death with a broom by her every time she sees the state of his office. Bard attempts to clean up whenever she threatens to make him do his bookkeeping alone if he keeps throwing bills into haphazard stacks.

“Indeed,” Thranduil sighs. “I was thinking we could meet around nine, have dinner and then get a room.”

“Get a room?” Now that makes it sound a bit like prostitution.

“I’m not suggesting a cheap motel where you rent rooms by the hour,” Thranduil scoffs. In the way of finances, that would be preferable though. How is Bard supposed to pay for a room measuring up to Thranduil’s standards? Thranduil must sense Bard’s reluctance through the phone. “My treat. Hotels are more anonymous and more convenient. My house is far from the city and you don’t live alone.”

It makes sense, Bard will have to admit. Still. “I don’t know if I can accept you paying for everything,” he says and drops the dishwasher tab in its compartment, snapping the lid shut. With a little extra force, he pushes the door closed and wanders to the fridge to grab a beer.

“Bard, I’m aware you don’t have a lot of extra money to spend and could probably think of better investments than a night in a hotel,” Thranduil says matter-of-factly while Bard cringes at the other end. He really doesn’t need the extra reminder that he can’t hold a candle to Thranduil’s affluence. However, he doesn’t want his pride to get in the way of this.

“Fine,” Bard grumbles. “Next time’s on me. Just don’t expect the Savoy. How do you like Motel One?”

“I’m sure we can find something suitable,” Thranduil’s voice is laced with amusement. “Can you meet me at eight-thirty outside the main entrance of Tower Hill station?”

“Sure.” Bard has the early shift tomorrow. That’ll give him enough time to do the shopping and prepare dinner for his little rascals.

“Excellent,” Thranduil says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, bye,” Bard gets in before Thranduil hangs up. Bard scrutinises the screen of his phone and takes a sip of his beer. Is that the posh version of a ‘booty call’? Fancy dinner and then have a shag in a even fancier hotel room?

Could be worse.

* * *

The next evening, Bard is nearly late, debating too long with himself what to wear for the occasion. He hasn’t dared text Thranduil to ask for a dress code. Trainers and a flannel shirt aren’t going to cut it, that much he knows. Bard doesn’t own much in the way of nice clothes. His only suit has gone out of fashion ages ago and he doesn’t have shoes to go with it anymore. There’s one pair of dark jeans free of any holes that passes as nice enough. He pairs it with one of his two dress shirts and the maroon jumper he got from Sigrid last Christmas. It’s finely woven wool (naturally, it can’t compare to Thranduil’s cashmere ones) and might pass as acceptable attire even for fine dining. As usual, his hair resists all reason, so Bard decides to go with a bun at his nape, even taking care it’s not too messy. 

Sigrid has agreed to make sure Bain and Tilda get to bed on time and Bard knows he can rely on her sending them to school should he not be back or too hungover by early morning. It’s taken him some time to convince Sigrid he isn’t going on a date, that it’s just dinner and drinks with Thranduil as a friend. By the end of her Spanish inquisition, she seems to buy it, thank god. Bard certainly isn’t going to let his daughter in on his involvement in a friend-with-benefits arrangement. 

Thranduil isn’t wearing a suit either when Bard finds him outside Tower Hill, dodging groups of tourists blind to everything in their quest to get a picture of the illuminated Tower of London. He’s wearing black slacks and a light coat that falls open to reveal an emerald green shirt. An ash grey scarf is wound around his back, the material rustled gently by the breeze. Bard wouldn’t discount the idea that Thranduil chose to wear something that’s almost casual for him to make Bard’s wardrobe look better. It’s touching and annoying at the same time.

Thranduil manhandles Bard into a cab at Tower Hill, Bard’s protests falling on deaf ears. The address Thranduil tells the driver is somewhere in Westminster and when Bard asks where they’re going, Thranduil answers with the name of a restaurant Bard couldn’t repeat for the life of him. He’s not a linguist, but it sounds very Japanese. 

Good thing he knows how to use chopsticks.

* * *

In retrospect, the chopsticks were the least of Bard’s problems as he follows Thranduil into the lift of the bloody _Savoy_. He’s willing to bet Thranduil booked it on purpose after Bard’s Motel One quip on the phone. Not that he has it in him to be mad at the moment, he’s tipsy from the warm sake they had after the meal. The courses almost entirely consisted of dishes Bard had never seen before in his life, but he isn’t a fussy eater – which paid off because the food was excellent. Aside from the nattō. That, Bard now hates with a passion.

Thranduil twirls the key card between his fingers, looking pleased with himself. Sadly, there’s three more people in the lift or else Bard would have some comments on that. They’ll have to wait until they’re in their room.

Once the back of Bard’s knees hit the edge of the bed though, Bard has forgotten about anything except the fact that he’s in the most luxurious room he’s ever set foot in with Thranduil straddling his lap, predatory smirk gracing his lips.

“What, no tour?” Bard asks with mock offence, dragging his fingernails over the material of Thranduil’s slacks.

“Sure,” Thranduil purrs. “This is the bed.”

Any smart comeback Bard had in mind gets sidetracked by Thranduil kissing him with fervour. If it’s done this way, Bard won’t protest much about being shut up. Thranduil is already yanking the shirt tails out of Bard’s jeans, trying to get at his bare skin. It feels much more intense now that his head isn’t swimming in whiskey; Thranduil’s fingernails rake over the light muscle definition on his abdomen with appreciation (now there’s the payoff for his morning runs and mini-workouts in the park). Bard hasn’t gotten to see or touch anything of Thranduil yet – which, last time, was Bard’s own fault but this time, he’s committed to mapping every inch of skin he can get his hands on.

Bard grips Thranduil by the waist and flips him onto his back. If the yelp of surprise is anything to go by, Thranduil hasn’t expected Bard to take control. He’s in for a surprise then.

 

Bard hasn’t sucked another man’s cock for almost exactly twenty years, but it doesn’t deter him from doing it now, not when Thranduil is making such sweet noises above him. Maybe oral sex is like riding a bicycle, you never unlearn it even if it’s a bit wobbly.

Thank the heavens that Thranduil remembered to bring lube and condoms (or, considering they were stored in the bedside drawer, requesting them to be placed there before their arrival) because Bard lumbered into this without the slightest preparation. He didn’t bring so much as a toothbrush. Granted, you can’t leave with an overnight bag if officially you’re only having dinner and drinks.

Bard worries about his performance before he goes down on Thranduil, but from the sound of it, he’s doing something right. He doesn’t really peg Thranduil for the kind of guy who’d fake his noises (it’s more likely he’d get a detailed criticism on what he’s doing wrong). Unfortunately he can’t take Thranduil’s member all the way in despite his best efforts; his gag reflex is something he’s never been able to overcome. Last time he tried, he nearly vomited on Jamie Carson’s carpet – and prim and proper Thranduil would certainly appreciate that even less, even if it weren’t his own carpets.

He tries to make up for the lack of depth with his hands, trailing his fingertips over the inside of Thranduil’s thighs and the sensitive flesh of his bollocks. Bard’s always liked that himself, his legs being rather responsive to light touches, so he figures it can’t hurt to try. Thranduil keeps making soft gasps and a few strangled moans, occasionally gripping Bard’s forearm wound around Thranduil’s thighs. The other, Bard has to use to keep Thranduil’s hips on the mattress – the man twitches upwards so much, Bard still fears gagging. It means he’s doing something right though, and Bard can’t help but feel a spark of pride at his ability to make Thranduil lose a little of his iron composure.

His train of thought is cut short when Thranduil’s hand sinks into Bard’s hair, not pulling hard, but enough to make him look up. Thranduil’s back is arched upwards, baring his neck. He’s pressed his other hand over his mouth to cover up the now muffled moans of pleasure, mindful of their neighbours. The muscles in the thigh under Bard’s hand are pulled taut. 

Thranduil is coming and it’s a sight Bard won’t forget for a while. It’s worth the kink he’ll be working out of his jaw later.

* * *

Bard’s hands grip around Thranduil’s slim waist, thumbs digging in just above Thranduil’s hip bones. He can feel the veil of sweat on Thranduil’s skin under his hands and sees it glistening on his nearly hairless chest. A few tendrils of platinum blond hair cling to his neck and arms, the rest is brushing Bard’s own chest as Thranduil moves astride him, taking him deep with every rocking motion.

Thranduil swept away every insecurity Bard’s had about bedding a man after so many years. He took the reins, and for the night Bard is happy to follow the lead. There are worse fates than being thrown on your back by a beautiful man and have him ride you. 

Thranduil’s blunt fingernails dig into Bard’s chest just shy of painful and his hands make his weight press down on Bard’s ribcage, leaving Bard unable to expel more than short gasps to mingle with Thranduil’s low moans. Anything else would require brain capacity and Bard is doing all he can to remember to simply breathe. Bard relishes the feeling of Thranduil bearing down on him, his thighs and abdomen flexing to help him move. Under Bard’s teasing hand and his own chase for gratification Thranduil has grown half hard again, despite his recent climax. Bard is more than willing to help him along a second time and tilts Thranduil’s hips to change the angle. Thranduil rewards him with an appreciative hiss and a momentary faltering of his rhythm, enjoying the brush over his prostate before he moves again. Half the fun is making your partner enjoy themselves, Bard thinks. 

Christ, even with so much lube and the condom between them, the tight heat around Bard’s cock is overwhelming. He’s forgotten how intense it can be. Bard feels the heat coiling at the base of his spine and settle low in his stomach, building release threatening to overcome him in the waves of crashing pleasure.

* * *

The only sounds in the room are the low humming of the air conditioning and the mingle of Bard and Thranduil catching their breaths. Bard feels sweaty and sticky in the best way possible and he still stares at the ceiling, half sunken into a daze. Thranduil lies at his side, the silver blond tresses fanning out almost like a halo around him – which is ironic, considering they just finished committing a multitude of sins. Not that Bard minds in the least. His right hand rests on Thranduil’s stomach, his thumb drawing absent-minded circles around the navel. 

Before coming to the room, Bard kept feeling anxious about bedding Thranduil, how it would feel to sleep with him, whether he’d regret it afterwards. He certainly doesn’t regret it. Tension is seeping out of his body -- the kind that keeps you in its clutches if you always put yourself last. Bard has done something for himself this once, hasn’t thought about his work or family first and it feels good.

Thranduil sighs. “I need a shower.”

Bard could use one, too. He isn’t sure how to proceed from here though – does Thranduil expect him to leave while he’s in the shower? Will they stay the night and share the bed? Is Thranduil going to leave after his shower? Bard has precious little knowledge on how to conduct these affairs.

“I can hear you thinking from here, Bard,” Thranduil says and sits up, reaching for the water bottle on the night stand. He takes a few gulps and hands the bottle to Bard before he speaks again. “The room is paid for until tomorrow morning, we might as well use it. Unless you need to go back home.”

“Uhm…no,” Bard mumbles and already regrets breaking the content atmosphere that hung about a minute ago. “I told Sigrid I might not be back in the morning if I got too pissed. She’s going to look after Bain and Tilda.”

Sigrid has done this countless times already. Not that Bard has a habit of staying out late ‘drinking,’ but whenever the café doesn’t generate enough money or Bard needs a few extra quid for class trips, school books or a new washing machine, he takes on a couple of night shifts at the petrol station Percy’s brother owns over in Islington. He’s fine having Bard on an irregular schedule and pays him a decent wage. Thankfully, Bard doesn’t need to resort to a second job often.

“Good,” Thranduil hums. “It would be a waste not to enjoy the accommodations.”

That much is true. Bard doubts he’s going to spend a lot of time being surrounded by this much luxury in the future. And he hasn’t even seen the bathroom yet. Thranduil looks like he’s used to five-star-hotels and he probably is, not paying any heed to the fine details of the interior decoration. Though Bard mostly scrutinises those to refrain from staring at Thranduil, because this slightly mussed, sated naked version of him is almost enough to raise Bard’s interest again. Good grief, he’s thirty-nine and not a hormonal teenager.

“In that case, would you like a tour of the bathroom?” Thranduil asks and a sly smile appears on his face.

Sod thirty-nine and refractory periods.

* * *

“Where did you get the scar?” Bard asks, running his thumb along the faint line on Thranduil’s cheek. Most of the time, Bard doesn’t even remember it’s there but up close as he is now, he’s curious. It’s perhaps two and a half inches long and a straight, neat cut, running at an angle from his cheekbone to his jaw.

Thranduil hums, already half-asleep and burrowed under the covers. They’ve had a vigorous tour of the bathroom – including the discovery that the shower is indeed big enough for two grown men engaging in frottage. Bard now smells of the expensive little soaps he found sitting on the sink; Thranduil was nice enough to scrub him all over with them.

“I call it my welcome present to Britain,” Thranduil mumbles and opens his eyes again. “It’s from a mugging that happened during our first week here.”

“Shit,” Bard says. “Great first impression.”

“It could have happened anywhere,” Thranduil says. “But it’s a reminder of a less than pleasant time in my life. I was still coming to terms with my wife declared dead, a new job, new country and a teenaged son who at the time barely talked to me. I came home late at night after I’d been to A&E and the police and hadn’t even let Legolas know what happened. He was distraught and angry with me. Rightfully so. It was the first time I realised I wasn’t being a good father.”

“You’re not a bad father,” Bard says because it’s ridiculous. Thranduil and Legolas might not be overly affectionate but the times he’s seen them together, the bond has been obvious. 

“I was, at the time,” Thranduil replies as if stating a fact. “For years, I was too caught up feeling sorry for myself. I’m still not a great father, but I like to think I turned it around before the damage was too great.”

“Legolas adores you,” Bard snorts. “That much was already obvious the first time I met him. He’s a good kid, I daresay you’ve done well.”

“Thank you,” Thranduil says and looks genuinely pleased. “Now go to sleep.”

* * *

Bard drops his keys in the designated bowl in the hall and listens to the sounds in the flat. He hears the radio playing softly in the kitchen but otherwise, it’s quiet. Bain and Tilda are off to school already. Sigrid should still be home, she’s only got to be in school at ten today.

He finds her sitting at the kitchen table, chewing on a piece of toast, no doubt cheese and marmite. Bard’s always found marmite revolting, but Sigrid loves it.

“Morning, luv,” he says and his eldest looks up from some worksheet she’s been studying and beams at him. 

“Hey, da!” She puts her toast down and points at the pot in front of her. “Cuppa?”

“Sure, why not,” Bard yawns and grabs his mug from the cupboard.

“You want some toast, too?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Bard mutters. “Just tea.”

“One pint too many?” Sigrid asks with a smile. “We’ve got new aspirin if you need any.”

Bard waves her offer away. “It’s not that bad,” he says and pours himself a cup from the pot, stirring in some sugar after. “I’m just getting old.”

Truth is, Bard had the most amazing breakfast just an hour ago. Thranduil ordered room service while Bard got ready in the bathroom and it looked like he’d ordered the entire buffet to be brought into the room. He’d even included eggs, cheese and ham for Bard in his order, which Bard shovelled down with little remorse while Thranduil piled avocados, figs or hummus on his slices of rye toast. Bard couldn’t eat another thing now if his life depended on it.

“Did you have fun at least?” Sigrid brushes the crumbs off her worksheet and pours another cup of tea for herself. Upside down, it looks like history. It’s been her favourite subject for as long as Bard can remember. She wants to study archaeology at university later.

Bard makes an affirmative noise with his mouth full of tea. The fun he had is just different from what Sigrid thinks.

“Good,” she says. “You could use a new friend.”

Bard’s old mates somehow evaporated into thin air when Elke got sick. Some stuck around for a while after her death, but with almost no free time left, it all fizzled apart. He used to be upset about that before he stopped caring. Now his kids are old enough to survive without him for a couple of hours and he found a friend (and a bit more) in Thranduil who was so different, yet so similar.

“I think you’re right,” he agrees.


	5. Coffee keeps me going until it's acceptable to drink wine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One afternoon after Bard and Thranduil settle into a routine of their 'arrangement' Bard meets Legolas and Tauriel at the shooting range. There, he learns some uncomfortable truths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks so much for all your lovely comments on the previous chapter. I'll be on holiday from the 21st to the 26th, so I'm not sure if I'll manage to post a chapter next week, but I'll try :)

For the next weeks, everything goes swimmingly. The warmer weather brings in more customers who find themselves in need of a cold caffeine fix (Sigrid’s new recipe for iced tea with yuzu proves to be a hit straight away) and those are the times Bard doesn’t mind being tired after closing up. Not when the register is pleasingly filled with bills and the balance shows a more than decent enough amount of money. If the summer months continue to be this successful, Bard might be able to put aside some more money for Sigrid’s studies and buy new coats for all of them for winter. Tilda and Bain have grown _again_ and Bard’s old coat is coming apart at the seams.

He’s met up with Thranduil several times and thankfully, he’s scaled down from the Savoy. Plus, there’s been a spectacular shag against the windows of Thranduil’s office and Bard minded his bare arse on display against the glass far less than he would have thought. Despite appearances, Thranduil is a generous lover and dedicated that Bard gets as much pleasure out of their encounters as he does. He doesn’t even comment on Bard’s no doubt clumsy first few performances while he still got used to being with a man again. Hopefully, he did it with less teenage fumbling than when he was still a teenager. Bard finds himself happier, not just more relaxed after their little ‘meetings’. There’s something in touching Thranduil and lying wrapped up in crumpled sheets with him that Bard wouldn’t be able to replicate with a hot bath and watching a good football match with a cold beer. That used to be Bard’s idea of perfect relaxation and it’s never made him feel this content.

Thranduil still comes in almost every day for a drink before or after work, sampling new drinks and baked goods whenever they land on the menu. Ever since Thranduil became a regular, Bard has expanded the vegan part of the menu vigorously. Sigrid, Hilda and Bard sometimes spend whole days in their kitchen in the back preparing batches of cupcakes, scones and sandwiches until they’ve found the perfect new texture and taste to feed their customers with. Hilda in particular has developed a zeal for finding vegan equivalents for buttercream, mayonnaise and clotted cream, despite having rolled her eyes at this new ‘plant food trend’ just a year ago. When Bard reminds her of that, she shoos him out of the kitchen.

Bard and Thranduil have developed a habit of texting each other random bits they find interesting. Thranduil sends him pictures of houses and buildings he finds either remarkably well-designed or an offence to his optical nerves, pointing out the atrocities with a sharp tongue that makes Bard laugh. Bard sends back the day’s most interesting customers, either the amusing kind or the ones that make you wish you’d never chosen working in the service industry. Their exchanges make time go by faster when it’s slow in the café or when Bard wants to procrastinate on his paperwork or work schedules.

Bard’s meeting Thranduil again later tonight, Thranduil inviting him via text after Bard told him he’s a free man for one day. In a show of rare coincidence, all three kids asked to sleep over at friend’s places. That way, he won’t have to come up with the excuses he usually employs to meet Thranduil. He doesn’t like lying to his kids, whether it’s omission by saying he’s meeting Thranduil for drinks or outright swindling about working a night shift at the petrol station. However, he prefers lying to his kids to them knowing the truth. It’s not something he could explain, not even to Sigrid who’s almost an adult. Also, he’s fairly certain that at least Bain and Sigrid really don’t want to know about their father having sex. Bard never would have wanted to know that about his parents either. 

He’s set to meet Thranduil in a wine bar in Richmond, Thranduil having a ‘social call’ with his business partner Celeborn there first. Which is Thranduil-speak for ‘I cannot ignore his messages about a get-together any longer.’ There’s not much love lost between them, from what Bard has gathered, their alliance forged mainly for strategic and business-related reasons. 

Bard just hopes meeting Celeborn first won’t leave Thranduil in a sour mood.

* * *

There’s enough wine in Thranduil to disperse the adverse effects of being in Celeborn’s presence for a prolonged amount of time (apparently, his wife Galadriel, the company’s head interior designer, came along as well) and Bard only has to pay for another glass of Riesling to get Thranduil back to an agreeable state. The prices in the bar aren’t outrageous, so even Bard can afford to pick up the tab for once. 

A flutter of nervousness settles in Bard’s stomach when Thranduil invites him to spend the night at his house instead of going to a hotel. That’s new. Neither of them have seen the other’s home yet and Bard didn’t think it would come to it, since particularly Thranduil always seemed keen to keep a bit of distance between them. Not that Bard would really want Thranduil to see his flat. It’s old, cramped and an array of mismatched furniture. The wallpaper peels in places and since the landlord can’t be bothered, Bard’s way of fixing it has been pinning his children’s drawings over the spots. There’s also the old coffee stain on the living room carpet he can’t get out. He’s reasonably sure he’ll find neither peeling wallpaper nor stained carpets at Thranduil’s house.

He also doesn’t find any words to describe his amazement when he’s confronted with Thranduil’s ‘humble abode.’ Bloody, buggering hell. His house is in fact located immediately across the street from the Old Deer Park, built in the back of his (for London generously sized) property. It’s a minimalist symphony in glass, wood and strategically placed bits of steel and concrete, much like his office. The flat roof and cubic shapes manage to remind even Bard of what little he remembers of Thranduil telling him about Bauhaus style. 

The front gate and adjoined wall are dark grey concrete and copper-coloured steel, partially covered in dark wood, though what lies behind it is what’s really impressive: the path to the house consists of white gravel, cut in half lengthwise by a shallow, perfectly rectangular pond that’s softly lit in the dark of the night. Bamboo grows along the inside of the wall, leaving Bard with a distinct impression of a Japanese garden.

“Crikey, that’s beautiful,” Bard murmurs.

“Remind me to show you the backyard in the morning,” Thranduil says in a conspiratorial tone, obviously pleased with Bard’s compliment.

“I expect the full tour in the morning,” Bard snorts. “And not the kind where we just end up doing it in the shower.”

“That can be arranged,” Thranduil chuckles low in his throat and Bard immediately feels his trousers tighten. That particular laugh shoots straight to his cock, the response is almost Pavlovian at this point.

Once inside, Thranduil turns on only a lamp in the foyer (with his phone, the show-off), so Bard doesn’t see much of the ground floor except that it seems to be a vast single room. Most of the walls are ceiling-high windows, letting the soft moonlight spill into the house. To his right, Bard can make out the shape of a large kitchen unit while the left, facing the backyard, appears to consist of the living area. He itches to explore how Thranduil lives, what kinds of paintings he hangs on his walls and whether his sofa is cosy, but the hand closing around his wrist prevents him.

“Later,” Thranduil promises with a smirk and pulls Bard by the wrist towards the staircase leading to the upper floor.

Bard huffs with no real heat behind it and follows. Upstairs, it’s more wood and less glass. There are also several rooms up here, all going off the long, straight hall. Bard notices it’s not all wood though. The wall facing the street is glass again, but it’s protected from onlookers by delicate wooden shutters. He’s willing to bet Thranduil never has to turn on a light during the day. A thick white carpet is muffling their steps as they approach the door at the end of the hall. 

“Did I leave the light on?” Thranduil murmurs, sounding puzzled. The door is cracked open and a streak of soft golden glow spills onto the carpet. He pushes against the wood with light pressure and it swings open quietly, revealing Thranduil’s bedroom. The furnishings are sparse, though they don’t leave the room bare. It seems to consist entirely of bookshelves, interrupted only by a large window looking out onto the garden. There’s also a door leading onto a balcony and another in the left-hand wall. Wardrobe or bathroom, if Bard has to guess. 

The bed itself is huge and low on the floor, almost like a futon. It looks incredibly cosy; there’s just one thing wrong with it: someone is lying in it.

“Legolas,” Thranduil says under his breath and walks into the room. Bard remains in the shadows of the hall so he won’t get noticed straight away. If Legolas noticed him, they could make up an excuse for his presence in Thranduil’s house. 

Legolas is curled up on the mattress, fully clothed except for his shoes. Thranduil crouches down next to the bed and carefully threads his fingers through his son’s blond tresses. The boy twitches under the touch and opens his eyes.

“Dad?” he mutters and rubs the palm of his hand across his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Thranduil asks and Bard can see him arch an eyebrow.

Legolas pulls a face. “I wanted to sleep here,” he says. “The walls in the flat are so thin, Aragorn and Haldir have been keeping me up for the last three nights. But I forgot my phone, so I just came here without calling you. And then I realised there’s no bed in my room anymore.” At the last sentence, Legolas looks sheepish and Bard can see Thranduil trying to suppress an amused smirk.

“I just wanted to lie down here for a minute and then go sleep on the couch,” Legolas sighs and a flush creeps up his neck. Embarrassed teenagers. Bain gets the same look when he’s been caught in a mortifying situation. “Obviously, that didn’t work. I’ll just go downstairs.”

Legolas tries to sit up, but Thranduil gently presses him back down to the bed. “Go back to sleep.”

“But-“ Legolas protests, but it’s a token fight and he settles back as soon as Thranduil gives him a look that brooks no further argument. His eyelids are already drooping closed again when Thranduil stands back up. He says something else in what Bard presumes is Icelandic, for he doesn’t understand a word, but it makes Legolas smile. It looks like he hasn’t even noticed Bard lurking in the shadows. Bard remains quiet as a mouse until the door closes behind Thranduil.

“I’m sorry,” Thranduil whispers and leads Bard far enough from the door so Legolas won’t be able to hear. “I had no idea he was here.”

“I gathered as much,” Bard chuckles. “Looks like he learnt flatmates come with a few drawbacks.”

“I’ll have words with Haldir tomorrow,” Thranduil grumbles. “He has his own flat, there’s no reason they have to meet up at Legolas’ all the time.”

“Go easy on him,” Bard smiles. “Young love.”

Thranduil rolls his eyes. “Still – a little courtesy shouldn’t be too much to ask.”

“Sure,” Bard agrees, fighting to hide his smile. And Thranduil thinks he’s not a caring father. Silly man. “So, unless we want your son to know what we’re getting up to, I suppose we best postpone this.”

“Yes,” Thranduil sighs, trying to sound put upon, but Bard knows he’s not at all upset to find Legolas back in his house. “But I can still offer you an innocent nightcap and a tour of the ground floor before I call you a cab.”

“Can’t say no to that.”

* * *

Bard gets the tour of the upper floor at a later date and can attest to the fact that sleeping in Thranduil’s bed is like sleeping on a cloud. With a mattress like that, Bard probably would have far fewer back problems. Thranduil also owns two possessive foot warmers in the shape of cats called Galion and Feren. Feren tries to camp out on Bard’s chest while Galion attacks his toes, though Thranduil assures him they usually sleep on the couch downstairs or in Legolas’ old room. Bard isn’t quite sure whether that’s true or Thranduil just doesn’t want to admit he lets the cats sleep in his bed. Both of them are attached to their owner, always brushing around his legs, and Galion even rolls up in Thranduil’s lap while they have coffee on the patio the next morning.

From what Bard hears while dishing out coffee to all parties concerned, Aragorn and Haldir haven taken it down a peg and let Legolas get his beauty sleep. Legolas, however, insists he still relies on ear plugs to drown it all out. Aragorn appears a touch embarrassed by the situation while Haldir takes it in stride, for which Legolas accuses him of having no shame. They squabble like siblings, really. Thranduil says they practically are, Haldir being almost like an older brother to Legolas while his best friend Tauriel is like a sister. Bard has only seen Tauriel twice or so; Thranduil says she lives in Hounslow with her grandparents and barely ever comes as far east as Shoreditch. Legolas and her became friends through the archery club and consequently formed an attachment at the hip. Gossipmonger that he is, Thranduil divulges as well that his son used to have a crush on Tauriel. Luckily, they managed to overcome it without any lasting damage to their friendship, although Legolas has yet to warm up to Tauriel’s boyfriend who is -according to popular description- tiny. Bard is amused by all the teenage heartbreak around him, occasionally reminiscing over his own heart’s desires from the age of fifteen onwards. Ah, to be this young again.

Bard finds himself back in Thranduil’s home several more times. Even though his house is lavish and far too posh for the likes of Bard, it beats a hotel any day. There’s more privacy at Thranduil’s house and for all its architectural designer glory, Bard finds it insanely comfortable. Thranduil himself is far less guarded in the comfort of his own four walls and Bard feels a familiar tugging in his chest returning whenever he watches the other man steeping tea in a washed out t-shirt and yoga bottoms in the morning. 

The familiarity is dangerous, Bard knows that. Having breakfast in someone’s home wearing their old shirts with their cat batting at your piece of toast is the very picture of domesticity. Every time Bard battles the growing urge to touch Thranduil, to brush his fingers though the blond silk, to scratch the space between his shoulder blades through his shirt, to nose up his neck or pinch his backside when he’s leaning on the kitchen counter. He resists kissing him when they get up or when Thranduil holds out a cup of tea to Bard or when they say goodbye. Bard is aware he’s circling back to his crush, probably getting in even deeper than before. He knows he should put back some distance between them, insist they go back to the late night hotel meetings, that Bard should stop spending the night with him. But he knows he won’t, knows he will hoard all the affection Thranduil is handing out for the time being because he’s certain the day will come when Thranduil will tire of him and someone more attractive will take his place. They’re not meant to do this forever. He needs to be prepared.

* * *

After weeks of working every day, Bard finds himself with the rare luck of an entire day off. And not just a day off. Even the weather is agreeable: almost no wind, sunny, not a cloud in the sky. It’s not yet hot enough to be uncomfortable outside. Not that Bard minds the heat much; he loves summer, short as it can be in London. While Bard gets excited seeing the thermometer climb towards thirty degrees, Sigrid and Bain will long for rocks to crawl underneath until it cools again. Granted, their flat tends to become stuffy and stale in warm weather thanks to the aged insulation. Merely Tilda is on his side, sharing her father’s dedication to afternoons sprawled on picnic blankets in Daubeney Green (or Hampstead Heath, if they’re up for the commute), sipping on cold drinks and devouring lemon and strawberry ice cream. 

Today however, Bard doesn’t fancy lazing about in the park but taking out his bow and visit the range. He’s got woefully little time to shoot these days and Legolas’ frequent tales about it have given him an itch. Before the kids he spent every free minute driving arrows through targets, winning tournaments left and right. He’d even been considered for competing at the Olympics, but pulled out as Elke became pregnant and exchanged the bow for a steering wheel. Not quite as fun, but even professional archery doesn’t support a family. One of his mates from tournament days owns a range up in North London and has offered Bard free use of the premises (for which Bard is eternally grateful because memberships aren’t cheap). Bard exchanged it for free coffee whenever Geoff decides to pop in. 

Despite its age, Bard’s bow is still in top condition (to this day, it’s the most expensive item he’s ever owned) and he checks it with a practiced eye while the other people at the range mill about him. The weather attracted many people, but thankfully it’s not overcrowded. He watches the kids’ lessons a few yards away from him and smiles at the children’s enthusiasm. A shame that none of his kids have inherited the interest in archery, though Sigrid is happy playing football and Bain seems to have found his calling in judo. Tilda has yet to show an interest in any sports, but she has recently become an avid member of her school’s gardening club. Their little balcony is slowly getting covered in pots of herbs and flowers.

“Bard?” he hears while he’s studying the rest of his equipment for any wear and tear and looks up to find Legolas in front of him, flanked by Tauriel.

“Oh, hey,” Bard says and gives a small wave. Legolas looks surprised to see him and for a second, Bard wonders why. Then he thinks that he might have never mentioned he’s an archer himself. That would be just like him, omitting one of the few actually interesting things about him.

“You shoot?” Legolas asks and wipes a stray lock of hair from his forehead. He’s pulled his hair into a bun at the back of his head to keep it out of his face, just like Thranduil does in the morning. Great, Bard’s back to pining over Thranduil’s breakfast look.

Bard scratches his head and offers a sheepish smile. “I do,” he says. “Just not that often anymore. I’m probably a little rusty now.”

“Care for a little friendly competition?” Tauriel asks and Legolas nods.

“Why not,” Bard smiles. Shooting with others is always more fun. “Give me a few warm-up shots first.” If he’s not entirely forgotten how to use a bow and arrow, he might still be able to impress those kids a bit.

“Sure, we’re at range eight,” Legolas says and points to the far right.

Once the two have disappeared again, Bard walks over to one of the more secluded practice ranges with less people in eyeshot, just in case he makes a fool of himself. 

He finds he doesn’t do too badly. There’s a decent chance he won’t look like a complete amateur next to Legolas. Thranduil says he excels at archery and Thranduil isn’t prone to parental exaggeration. Bard has no idea how good Tauriel is, but if he knows his luck, he’s got two prodigies on his hands. 

He seeks out Legolas and Tauriel at their range, firing practice shots. They agree on three arrows each, the winner the one who gets their arrows closest to the centre. Tauriel goes first; her posture is good, Bard thinks, just a touch too tense. One hits the centre, the two others go a little wide. He thinks he might be able to beat that if he keeps his cool. Bard draws, the familiar tautness of his muscles a welcome pull in his shoulders. He aims and releases on the exhale. Centre. The second arrow hits the centre as well, though not quite as close to the other as he would have liked. On the third, his shoulder is too tense, he knows the arrow won’t hit the centre and doesn’t, it lands on the red ring instead, a scant inch outside the yellow circle.

“Damn,” Tauriel breathes. “I thought you were rusty.”

“I am,” Bard grins. “But less than I’d feared. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have missed the last one.” Archery is one of the few areas he allows himself some confidence. He knows he used to be good. Thranduil once told him to be less self-depreciating, that the brow-beaten look doesn’t suit him.

“Still,” Legolas says. “Nice shots. My turn.”

“Oh, now he’s going to show off,” Tauriel sighs, but she looks amused while she says it and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“Me?” Legolas grins and aims while Tauriel snorts.

Well...Thranduil hasn’t exaggerated. Legolas is that good. Actually, he’s scary good – Bard isn’t sure he would have been able to beat him at the height of his training. All three of Legolas’ arrows have hit dead centre, grouped together with a hair’s breadth between them.

“Wow,” Bard says and gives a low whistle.

“Not showing off at all,” Tauriel chuckles.

They shoot a few more rounds, Bard managing to beat Legolas once, but Tauriel gets the better of Bard twice. All in all, he manages to hold his own against the youngsters – more than he would have thought. Maybe he isn’t getting quite as old yet. After over an hour, they’re all sweaty and their arms are aching. Bard rotates his shoulders and flexes his arm, not used to the draw weight anymore. Tauriel proposes refreshments and wanders off to find them something cold to drink, leaving Bard and Legolas sitting in the grass under a lime tree.

“Hey, I don’t think I’ve ever said that I’m happy that you and my dad are friends,” Legolas says out of the blue, leaning back against the tree trunk. “I can’t remember the last time he had one.”

Bard hums in what he hopes is a vague, yet positive manner and smiles. While he supposes that they are indeed friends, it’s not the whole truth and that’s not even considering Bard’s rekindled crush. The crush that has become a full-blown infatuation, if he’s being honest with himself. Legolas thoughts are likely more innocent than the muddle of Bard’s feelings in all things Thranduil.

“I think you got through to him,” Legolas smiles. “More than I ever did.”

“Your father loves you,” Bard says, ready to defend Thranduil’s adoration for his son.

“I know,” Legolas replies, his smile still there. It has grown a little sadder though. “But I also know he keeps me at arm’s length most of the time. I don’t think he likes being vulnerable.”

“I don’t think anyone _likes_ being vulnerable,” Bard says but he knows he nitpicking at semantics here. Legolas knows it, too, since he only arches an eyebrow (it’s a perfect mirror image of his father’s look) and doesn’t say anything in return. Bard would be lying if he said that Thranduil doesn’t try distancing himself from everyone. He’s seen glimpses of warmth, but Thranduil is a very guarded man, even with those closest to him.

“I guess it’s a good thing those dates never worked out for you two,” Legolas goes on and Bard is lucky Legolas is fiddling with some grass blades because he’s sure the tips of his ears are burning. “His lovers never last long.”

“His lovers?” Bard asks, despite wanting to take the conversation to safer territory. As far as he knows, Thranduil doesn’t parade strings of lovers around in front of Legolas.

“The ones he thinks I don’t know about,” Legolas snorts. “I’m not blind or incapable of counting two and two together. And his dear assistant is a gossipmonger.”

Bard swallows, throat suddenly dry. He never even considered Haldir, the man who sees more of Thranduil than Legolas does. Not that Bard’s made it a point to turn up a lot in Thranduil’s office, but you never know.

“Does it bother you if he’s got lovers?” Bard decides to dip a toe in the crocodile infested pool, but he’s always been bad at keeping his mouth shut.

“No,” Legolas shrugs. “He’s an adult, he can do what he wants. I want him to be happy, but I just don’t think those flings are helping him. I think he’d be much happier if he’d just had one person to really share his life with.”

“Not easy to find a person like that,” Bard says. Legolas is young and relatively free of obligations. It’s so much harder when you’re already set in your ways, juggling a family and trying to make a living. 

“I know,” Legolas hums. “And I think my mother’s shadow is still following him.”

Legolas speaks of his mothers like Tilda does of Elke. Tilda has no concept of her mother, she doesn’t remember her and looks at the baby pictures of her and her mother with a kind of detachment he doesn’t see with Bain and Sigrid. To Tilda, her mother is a character in stories. And Legolas lost his mother even earlier. He probably feels an absence, not a loss.

“It took me forever to get over my wife’s death,” Bard ponders. “Your dad doesn’t even know for certain if she’s gone and that plays on your mind, unlikely as it is that she’s still alive somewhere.”

“Still,” Legolas shrugs. “I don’t see how having three or four lovers at the same time is going to help him deal with that. If it made him happy, I wouldn’t care, but it doesn’t.”

“You sure you’re not going a little overboard there?” When would Thranduil even have the time to entertain this many people?

“I know he’s got at least two right now,” Legolas says. “Not unreasonable to think there might be more.”

“Two?” Bard asks, heart surging into his throat. Suddenly, he’s far less concerned with whether or not Legolas might have an inkling of what Bard and Thranduil get up to.

“Mh,” Legolas hums in agreement. “Haldir says my father’s been coming to work a lot with the same suit two days in a row for a while. That, and that he’s shagging his secretary now. How cliché can he be?”

The thing with the suits, that could be Bard. Although they’ve met at Thranduil’s house far more often lately because he knows Bard is uncomfortable with the money for the hotel rooms coming out of Thranduil’s pockets. On those occasions Thranduil would always leave the house in a different suit the next morning. Was he seeing someone else in hotels? Was it an unknown third person? The secretary? Bard has met Thranduil’s secretary two or three times – a young lad named Meludir, came to the company straight out of university not long ago. He couldn’t be that much older than Legolas. Long hair, pretty face. Far prettier than Bard’s scruffy old appearance. 

Bard feels a stab in the gut. Thranduil and him aren’t dating, he’s got no right to be upset. They haven’t had any agreements other than exactly that: no dating. If Thranduil wants to sleep with a hundred people at the same time, it should be no concern of his. And yet…

And yet a part of him hoped they might have something special after all. Nothing that makes angels break into song and shower them in glitter, but special enough that Thranduil might not feel the need to seek out someone else. The idea was bollocks of course, born out of his infatuation and jealousy. He wanted to be enough for Thranduil, but what can he offer? He’s a middle-aged father of three on a tight budget. He’s got no spectacular abilities between the sheets or any other ensnaring tricks to keep him coming back for more. They’ve got common interests, views and stories, they can share a laugh and talk to each other easily – and all that, they can do as friends. No need for them to sleep together or be anything more. And therein lies the problem: Bard _wants_ them to be more, has probably in a subconscious corner of his mind hoped that if they do this long enough, Thranduil will come around. He won’t, and Bard can’t even blame him for the ache in his chest because Thranduil never promised anything. Not even that he wouldn’t sleep with others. It’s Bard’s own fault for deluding himself into thinking that he alone is enough to keep Thranduil entertained and satisfied.

“Bard?” he hears Legolas ask and only then he notices the bottle of water in front of his face. Tauriel must have been holding it there for a while now.

“Sorry,” Bard murmurs and takes the water, perspiration wetting his fingers. “I went somewhere else for a second.”

“Quite alright,” Legolas says and takes a swig from his own bottle. Tauriel’s return has put a stop to their conversation, thankfully. Bard isn’t sure he would have been able to keep listening without giving himself away eventually. 

They drink their water, Legolas sharing anecdotes from university while Tauriel shows fiery passion for her training as a police officer. Bard injects the appropriate hums and nods where necessary to give an impression of listening, while in reality he’s a galaxy away and only anchored to earth by the dull ache that seems to compress his ribcage. 

After their break, they shoot another round, but Bard is distracted and loses to both Legolas and Tauriel. He makes his excuses and says he has to go pick up Tilda at a friend’s, which is a blatant lie, but he doesn’t feel like shooting anymore.

He ends up going home to find only Sigrid there, Bain and Tilda out somewhere with their respective friends. Sigrid is baking biscuits, muttering about something new for the café and Bard watches her work, occasionally dipping his finger into the dough and stealing biscuits until Sigrid swats him with the dish cloth. It helps him banish Thranduil to the back of his mind for the time being. When Tilda and Bain turn up streaked with grass and dirt from tumbling through god knows what undergrowth, Thranduil is temporarily replaced by the daily tasks of convincing your kids that bathing is indeed necessary, and so is dinner before getting any ice cream. There’s a minor scuffle to arbitrate when Sigrid and Tilda each demand the last of the lemon sorbet. Bain thankfully prefers the chocolate ice cream. Bard solves the problem by eating the sorbet himself. Not the most elegant solution but he’s not in the mood for diplomacy and it _does_ end the fight.

But once the children are herded to bed, the dishes are put away and the laundry folded, Bard can’t put off going to bed any longer. He knows once his head hits the pillow, Thranduil will come crashing back to him.

That night his sleep is uneasy, haunted by a familiar head of platinum blonde hair and a pair of pale blue eyes.

* * *

Bard needs to pour half a cup of caffe latte over his trousers and sustain near burns in tender areas before he decides he needs to do something about his state of distraction. He dons an apron to hide the stains, but not before Percy and Sigrid send him off to take a break. Sigrid thrusts a plate with a bagel into his hands (rye, cream cheese and gooseberry jam, Bard’s favourite) and tells him to eat something. Bossy, that one.

He sits on the steps leading out to the small yard where they and the off-licence next door keep their dustbins. Farid waves from his back window, obviously stocking up as he’s waving with packets of crisps in his hand. Bard waves back and concentrates on his bagel again, wishing he could read the answer to all his problems in the swirls of cream cheese and jam.

Though the answer is quite simple actually, Bard just doesn’t want it to be the answer. He needs to stop seeing Thranduil, or at least he needs to stop sleeping with him. Bard isn’t doing himself any favours, it’s obvious he isn’t good at separating sex and emotions. If he hasn’t already, he’s becoming very attached and Thranduil has no interest in his emotions. By now, he doubts Thranduil would miss their encounters much. Apparently, there are enough people to keep him busy.

The thought settles bitter on his tongue.


	6. I need something that's more than coffee and less than cocaine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bard gathers the courage to speak to Thranduil about the state of their 'relationship', but nothing goes the way he planned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer break than anticipated. I got back from my holiday with a terrible cold and only now managed to clean up the current chapter. I hope everyone had a good start into 2016!

Bard isn’t much one for introspection, but even he notices something has to change. His texts to Thranduil become curt, and he sometimes catches himself feeling angry at the man. He doesn’t want to be angry at him. Bard still wants Thranduil’s friendship (and more, though that doesn’t seem to be in the cards) and being ill-tempered might chase Thranduil off.

New boundaries are needed, Bard is aware of that. It’s why he finds himself outside Thranduil’s office building with two iced soy chai latte in his hands. He will have to tell Thranduil that they need to stop sleeping with each other. It’s the only way he might be able to get over his feelings. No blurred lines. No glasses of wine in a hotel bar as a pretext to dropping your pants after. No breakfasts in Thranduil’s old t-shirts with a cat biting his toes. The idea of losing all of this brings back the ache in Bard’s chest but he knows he’s on the way to a whole lot more pain if he allows it to continue. He will only get in deeper. Too deep and then not even their friendship might survive.

Grow a pair and talk to him, Bowman, he thinks and strides into the building.

The lady at the front desk smiles and nods, recognising him. Bard smiles back and takes the lift to Thranduil’s floor. His hopes that the foyer might be deserted are in vain, for there’s two people sitting at the desk in front of Thranduil’s office. Well, one is sitting at the desk, the other is sitting on it.

“Bard,” Haldir grins from his spot on the desktop and waves. “Have you come to see his Lordship?”

“If he’s free,” Bard says. “I’ve got an appointment in the area later, thought I’d stop by.” A lie, but he doesn’t want to give Haldir the impression his visit is anything other than casual.

“He’s free right now, Mr. Bowman,” the second voice pipes in and Bard has to acknowledge it after all. He was trying hard to ignore Meludir, the secretary, but no such luck. Meludir smiles brightly. “I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”

“Oh yeah, after that wanker this morning, he could use a friendly face,” Haldir laughs.

“Pesky client?” Bard asks.

“Sort of,” Meludir snorts. The faint sneer underlines the youth in his face. His features are still soft, Bard can imagine his jawline and cheekbones will be sharper in a few years. Nevertheless the boy is exceedingly pretty. The straight and silky dark hair is pulled into a ponytail, keeping the strands from his face. There’s no lines or imperfections in his face. Really, Bard shouldn’t be surprised that Thranduil is taking him to bed. Meludir is the type he would have pegged Thranduil to go for: young, smooth, beautiful. None of these truly applied to Bard.

An irrational flare of angers wells up in him. He wants to shove Meludir against a wall and tell him to keep his hands off Thranduil. He doesn’t want the mental images of Thranduil pressing a naked Meludir into the mattress, splaying his fingers over the breastbone and digging the dull point of his fingernails into the smooth skin. Bard chokes down an impulse to rub at his chest, feeling the phantom bruises of Thranduil’s fingers. Is Meludir aware he’s not the only one to warm Thranduil’s bed? Does he know about Bard? It’s useless pondering on it, because he definitely won’t ask Meludir about it – but Bard wonders all the same.

“Let’s see if coffee helps,” Bard paints a smile on his face and holds up the coffee cups for emphasis.

“What is it?” Haldir asks and tries to get a whiff.

“Iced chai latte,” Bard says. “New recipe.”

“Oooh,” Haldir grins. “I should try that soon.”

“You do that,” Bard smiles. “Bring Aragorn, he likes our chai.”

“Noted,” Haldir laughs and pulls his phone from his pocket. Probably sending a text to Aragorn asking him to have coffee later. Bard can’t even begrudge Haldir his sappy smile. At least someone around here is happy. As for Bard himself, he feels like the lamb herding itself to the slaughter.

Bard knocks at Thranduil’s office door and walks in before he has an answer. If he doesn’t barrel through now, he’ll lose his nerve and run. Even if running seems sensible, who likes to humiliate themselves in front of a friend?

‘Sorry, Thranduil, we need to stop shagging because I’ve developed feelings for you. No big deal.’ It already sounds stupid in his head. Admitting failure to keep himself in check, admitting you’ve fallen head over heels in love with an emotionally stunted man, knowing he isn’t in love with you in return? Bard would rather walk over coals. Unfortunately there are no hot coals available.

“Bard?” Thranduil asks and looks surprised.

“Hey,” Bard says. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

“No,” Thranduil sighs and tosses the pen for his drawing tablet on the desk. “Nothing important anyway. What brings you here?”

“Well, I’ve got coffee,” Bard says and hands one of the cups to Thranduil. “Or chai, rather. Percy created it. I hope it hasn’t gotten too warm yet.”

Thranduil lifts the lid off the cup and sniffs. “Soy, I hope?”

“No, I brought dairy for a vegan,” Bard says and rolls his eyes, smiling. He doesn’t really mind Thranduil asking for confirmation, even if Bard so far has never tried so serve him anything containing animal products. Alright, except that one time Bard offered him a cough drop containing honey.

“You didn’t come all the way just to bring me cold drinks, I take it?” Thranduil asks. “Not that I’d mind a delivery service.”

“Not happening,” Bard grins. “Actually, I stopped by because I wanted to talk to you about something. About…us.”

Oh hello, the lump in his throat is back.

“Yes?” Thranduil prompts, stirring the thin wooden stick in his cup. He regards Bard with piqued interest, sensing there’s a serious conversation on the horizon.

_We need to stop having sex or I will fall in love with you._ Just say it, Bowman. 

“I – we…I think we should stop sleeping with each other,” the words tumble out of Bard’s mouth and he clicks his jaw shut as soon as they’ve escaped. 

Thranduil looks surprised; as much as Thranduil can look surprised. His eyebrows wander towards his hairline and he abandons stirring his drink in favour of focussing on Bard. Bard feels like a spotlight has been turned on him.

“May I ask why?” Thranduil asks, tone deceptively neutral. Bard knows it was too much to hope for getting away without an explanation. He sees a touch of wariness in Thranduil’s eyes – the man is too perceptive and intelligent for his own good. Does he already fear Bard has come to come to confess an infatuation, love even?

“I…” Bard swallows. _Say it, fool._ “I’ve met someone.”

Not that.

What the hell is he talking? What has possessed him to say this?

“You’ve met someone?” Thranduil repeats and if anything, he looks now more surprised. There’s something else in his eyes, but Bard can’t decipher it.

Bard nods, fearing to open his mouth. God knows what else would fall out. What is he doing, spinning a lie about having met someone? Has he gone bonkers?

“Who?” Thranduil’s eyes narrow by a fraction.

“No one you know,” Bard mutters. “Customer.” It’s the only place Bard could realistically meet anyone. 

The sound Thranduil makes is non-committal to a frustrating degree. Bard isn’t sure he even believes him. Why should he? It’s entirely made up after all. Though if he found out now, Bard would grab a shovel and make sure the earth literally opens up and swallows him. Death by embarrassment; is that a thing?

“And it’s serious?” Thranduil asks. Probably doesn’t want to accuse Bard of lying without any proof.

“Not yet,” Bard mumbles and fiddles with the lid of his paper cup. “But it might be and I don’t think it would be a good start if I slept with someone else.”

If he keeps going, he’s certainly going to trip up. Or play his role brilliantly and get an Oscar for most pathetic break-up. Except this isn’t really a break-up. You’d have to be together for that in the first place. Dissolution of an agreement? Sounds like a term Thranduil would use. Smooth and clinical.

“Well, you are entitled to…terminate our agreement for whatever reason you see fit,” Thranduil says and Bard has a momentary wish to throw his drink in Thranduil’s lap just to see if that would get a reaction out of him. Would be better if his drink were hot, but those wool trousers don’t look like they’d go well together with chai latte, cold or not.

“I figured you wouldn’t be bothered too much by it,” Bard says, tone clipped at the edges. Suddenly, he’s angry at Thranduil’s blasé behaviour. “There are enough others to keep your bed warm.”

This time, Thranduil definitely narrows his eyes at him. Bard keeps his face impassive.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Thranduil asks. If he’s surprised that Bard knows about his other lovers, he doesn’t show it. “We never said we would be exclusive.”

“I never said we were,” Bard says, careful not to let his simmering anger show. No matter how unfazed Thranduil is and how it little it seems to bother him, Bard doesn’t actually want to cause a scene.

Thranduil just nods in response. Like Bard, he doesn’t appear to be willing to let the conversation escalate into an argument. Usually Bard isn’t that good at holding his tongue – it used to get him in a lot of trouble. Perhaps the years of working with customers have actually taught him not to say everything that’s on his mind.

“So…you don’t mind if we stop?” Bard asks. 

“Like I said, if that’s what you want to do, you are free to.”

“Not what I asked,” Bard can’t help but point out.

Thranduil doesn’t look thrilled that Bard won’t let this go. He should have guessed Thranduil wouldn’t speak about his feelings on the matter unless Bard dragged it out of him. “I enjoyed our meetings,” Thranduil concedes. “If it were up to me, I would have them continue.”

But apparently you don’t enjoy them that much if you still need others on the side, Bard thinks. Perhaps that’s not fair to think, but right now he can’t bring himself to care about that as well.

“Well, I enjoyed it, too,” Bard says. He enjoyed it too much, frankly. “But I’m not the type to keep seeing someone on the side if there’s a chance at something serious.”

Oh yes, advertise your honourable behaviour, Bard, he thinks. Since you are displaying so much of it right now. 

“I suppose that’s true,” Thranduil says and if that doesn’t manage to make Bard feel even worse about lying. 

He is just about to crumble again when a soft knock at the door interrupts his train of thought.

“Boss?” Haldir sticks his head through the office door, phone held to his ear. “The car for your meeting with Oakenshield will be here in five minutes.”

Thranduil scrunches up his nose as if he’s smelled something unpleasant.

“I’m sure Oakenshield is as thrilled as you are,” Haldir snorts and disappears again, back to talking on his mobile.

“The Oakenshield from Erebor you always whine about?” Bard can’t help but ask and Thranduil looks indignant at the accusation. 

“I do not _whine_ ,” he mutters and Bard grins.

“Sure, you complain in style.” It’s no secret that Thranduil loathes Thorin Oakenshield (the feeling is said to be mutual), head of the great Erebor Building Corporation. Thranduil says they’re unfortunately the only building company in Greater London that does satisfactory work and doesn’t have reprehensible business standards, so he ends up cooperating with them on a regular basis despite the personal misgivings. Haldir once related the secret that Legolas’ flatmate Gimli appears to be the son of one of Erebor’s engineer’s. Thranduil would likely get an aneurysm if he ever were to hear of it.

Thranduil has narrowed his eyes at Bard again, playfully though this time. “Cheeky.”

“Me?” Bard exclaims in dramatic manner, covering his heart with the palm of his right hand. “I’m wounded.”

“I apologise,” Thranduil smirks and gets up, gathering his suit jacket from the back of his desk chair. “Thank you for the chai, it was good.”

“Don’t mention it,” Bard says and gets up as well, happy to have a reason to get out of the conversation. Despite their little banter just now, the atmosphere is still tense.

Thranduil moves around his desk and comes to stand in front of Bard, towering over him. The man’s height is ridiculous. 

“Good luck with your customer,” Thranduil says (is Bard imagining the note of sadness in his tone?) and touches his hand to Bard’s jaw, drawing him forward with a gentle grip and pressing a light kiss to Bard’s lips. “Let me know how it goes.” He rests his hand on Bard’s chest for a moment, heat seeping through the fabric of Bard’s t-shirt. Then he lets go and leaves his office while Bard is still rooted to the spot.

He counts to ten in his head, concentrating on the effort not to run after Thranduil and telling him that he was kidding and that he’s in love with him and that they should just keep on doing what they’ve been doing. A breath escapes as soon as the door softly falls into its lock behind Thranduil. What was that? Why the sudden tenderness from Thranduil?

He’d been prepared for cold dismissal or even a fight – something to justify his anger, but this has thrown him.

Bard stares blankly at the back of the small copper picture frame standing next to Thranduil’s monitor (contains a photograph of Legolas winning his first archery tournament at the age of eight), the only personal item Thranduil keeps in the office. Then he gathers his cup and strides to the door, urged by the need to leave.

Thranduil and Haldir seem to have left; the only person remaining is Meludir who’s typing one-handedly and sipping from an Eryn Lasgalen mug at the same time. His ponytail swings back and forth in time with his movements.

“Is there anything else you need, Mr Bowman?” he asks and with anyone else it would have sounded like a cloaked reminder to get lost. Meludir just sounds eager to be of service. Somehow, that annoys Bard more than a dismissal would have.

“No, thank you,” Bard mutters and throws his cup into the bin next to Meludir’s desk. “I’ll be off.”

“Have a nice day,” the boy calls after him and Bard just waves his hand in a vague manner.

He really wants out of that office tower before he starts dwelling on all the interns and secretaries there Thranduil could be sleeping with. Thranduil’s sex life officially doesn’t concern him anymore.

Unofficially, it is an entirely different matter.

* * *

Bard has effectively ceased communication with Thranduil. He finds himself often fiddling with his phone, wondering whether he should text him and then decides against it. Mostly because he still feels bad about the way he lied to Thranduil – that he didn’t have the guts to be honest and that he felt the need to spin such a ridiculous story.

Though Thranduil doesn’t really text him either, only two messages spread over three days and both of them asking if Bard could set aside a vegan cinnamon roll for him to pick up later. One of the times he came to pick them up, Bard hasn’t even been in. The other time they were drowning five deep in customers and only could exchange a few sentences. Bard doesn’t only feel back to square one, he feels like they’ve stepped back even further. Splendid.

On a Wednesday, mid-morning rolls around quietly. The early rush is gone and it’s going to be another while before lunch break rush starts. To top it off, it’s raining outside, summery thunderstorms set to pour over London throughout the whole day. The humidity is staggering and everyone who’s able to stay inside is staying there. 

Three patrons are scattered in the café, reading papers in their chairs or tapping away on their laptops while Bard uses the time to exchange a few lightbulbs and dust the corners he likes to neglect on a busy day.

“That ladder looks like an instrument for murder,” he suddenly hears below him and Bard jumps at the sound, almost falling off the top step he’s perched on.

“Jesus Christ,” Bard groans and clamps a hand over his heart.

“I know we haven’t spoken for a couple of days, but I was hoping you wouldn’t have forgotten my name already,” the tone doesn’t even attempt to hide its humour. 

“Ha bloody ha,” Bard grumbles, but chuckles anyway. “Good morning to you, too, Thranduil. Haldir.”

“His majesty would like some ‘decent’ coffee for our meeting,” Haldir says with a grin. “Apparently the thousand-quid machine in the office isn’t good enough anymore.”

From the side, Thranduil throws Haldir a warning glance, but Bard guesses Haldir has grown immune to them over time. Not many would dare teasing Thranduil when the man’s within earshot.

“I will try and scrape something together,” Bard chuckles. 

“Turkish coffee for me,” says Haldir. “Lots of sugar.”

“Plain filter coffee for me,” Thranduil says. He could have gotten that from his machine in the office, Bard thinks and decides to make him French press instead.

“Large mug?”

“Absolutely,” Thranduil agrees and turns around to look for a free table. Bard follows him with his eyes, watches his hair gleam under the warm light of the lamps and his fingers itch to touch it again. He misses Thranduil even though it’s only been a couple of days. There’s the ache pulling at his heart again and Bard shoves it away as if he’s afraid it might burn him. He can feel sorry for himself tonight in front of the telly but not right now.

“Oh, he’s going to be a delight today,” Haldir groans and follows Bard to the counter to wait for their drinks. Whenever Thranduil drinks his coffee black, his mood is about the same colour. Bard feels for Haldir – Thranduil in a foul temper is something to run away from. Well, he did run, didn’t he?

“Godspeed,” Bard grins as he hands Haldir the two drinks.

Haldir throws him a dirty look in return.

* * *

“What are you putting in his coffee? Crack? Catnip?” Haldir asks as he picks up the second round of coffees. “That’s the third time this week he wants to have our meetings here.”

“Damn, our catnip secret has been uncovered,” Percy pipes in from sink and Bard snorts.

“I’ll take it to my grave,” Haldir quips in perfect imitation of a conspiratory tone and inclines his head before he goes back to the table where Thranduil has spread out a few sheets the size of the entire surface.

It is indeed the third time this week for Thranduil and Haldir to come in to speak about whatever it is you speak about as a famous architect and their assistant. They even stay pretty long, almost two hours. Not that Bard minds as a businessman; they drink plenty during that time and despite knowing each other so well these days, Thranduil still leaves tips that Bard is embarrassed to stuff into the piggy bank on the shelf behind the coffee beans. Also, he can definitely feel Thranduil observing him and the counter for extended periods of time. It makes him squirm on the inside. It’s enough torture to see Thranduil every day, having the man stare at him half the time does nothing to make it better. Why is Thranduil watching him so much?

He tries to speak normally to Thranduil when he’s at the café, but it’s been apparent from the start that Bard would rather curl up in bed for a week and nurse his heartbreak before he interacts with Thranduil in any meaningful way. Even a very clichéd bout of watching a rom-com with a tub of ice cream sounds tempting, though Bard guesses drinking in a shady bar with smoke curling under the lamps is considered the ‘manly’ version for that. Bard would prefer ice cream to drinking. Not that he has any chance to be doing either. There’s coffee to be served.

From the corner of his eyes, he can see Thranduil watching him.

Perhaps he should start drinking. Pouring whiskey into coffee is a legit drink after all.

* * *

“Da, do you have a girlfriend?” Sigrid asks out of the blue one evening when Bard is trying to help Tilda with her English homework, an essay detailing what she did last weekend, making Bard nearly choke on his tea.

“Or boyfriend,” she adds while Bard is still trying to remove the tea from his windpipe – why does anyone think pounding your chest helps with that?

“Why do you ask?” Bard rasps, searching his daughter’s face for clues. Even Bain has stopped reading the novel he’s supposed to work on for school, although his eyes remain glued to the page. The boy is trying very hard to be inconspicuous.

“Oh, it’s just…” Sigrid mumbles and fiddles with the tea towel she’s holding.

“Is it Mr. Thranduil?” Tilda asks, eyes sparkling. Tilda has only ever seen Thranduil once and not even spoken to him, but she seems to have developed a fascination with his hair, shared by Sigrid who mentions every time Thranduil comes in that she wishes she had hair this pretty.

“No,” Bard grumbles and Tilda looks a little put out. “Sigrid, why?”

“Well, he asked me a lot of questions that kind of made it sound like you had one,” Sigrid says and shrugs.

“Who?” Bard asks.

“Mr. Orophersson.” 

Low blow, Thranduil. He’s too proud to ask Bard himself and instead tries to squirrel information out of his children? Never mind that Bard employed the very same technique at the archery range.

“Look,” Bard sighs, fiddling with the spoon in his mug.

“He’s blushing,” Bain says to Sigrid, who scrutinises her father. That only makes Bard’s cheeks flush more.

“Zip it, you two,” he grumbles. “I’m just not used to talking to you about this stuff.”

“Oh, Da,” Sigrid sighs, the sound of a daughter longsuffering. “We’re not children anymore.”

Bard arches an eyebrow. “Darling, you grossly overestimate the maturity of teenagers,” he says. “Let that be said by someone who was one once.”

“What, like fifty years ago?” Bain asks.

“Excuse me, how old do you think I am?” Bard scoffs.

“You’re fibbing,” Sigrid says. Damn. Caught.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Bard says. He really can’t lie to his kids about this. Sigrid looks stern. “I’m serious.”

Great, now he’s got three pairs of eyes on him. This is the first time they have a conversation about new partners for Bard together. He’s brushed the topic with all of them at one point or another before.

“I’m not going to parade every potential person in front of you,” Bard says, firm. “If they get to meet you, that means it’s serious and that I need your approval.”

“Our approval?” Bain asks. He’s the most difficult to gauge and Bard doesn’t really know how Bain would react to an actual new partner. Bain is old enough to remember his mother, but he does not yet possess Sigrid’s maturity. While she understands that meeting someone new isn’t going to nullify Bard’s love for their mother, Bard isn’t so sure Bain has managed to wrap his head around that idea yet. Whenever the family photo album with the wedding and baby pictures disappears from the shelf in the living room, Bard has a nine out of ten chance of finding it in Bain’s room.

“You guys are the most important people in my life,” Bard says. “If you don’t like who I’m seeing, that’ll be the end of it. I only come as a package deal.”

“Do we get to have a vote?” Tilda asks. Recently she’s had votes on everything; from dinner to the colour of the tablecloth. They’ve been talking about elections in school.

Sigrid rolls her eyes. “We’re not having another election.” Tilda sticks out her tongue at Sigrid.

“Knock it off, you two,” Bard grumbles.”No need for elections.”

“So there’s no one?” Sigrid asks.

“If there were someone worth knowing about, you would have heard it from me,” Bard asserts. “Don’t let Thranduil give you ideas, he’s just a nosy sod.”

“You should have a date with Mr Thranduil,” Tilda beams. “His hair is pretty and you like him.”

“Yes, his hair is pretty,” Bard laughs. He can agree on that. Theoretically, he could also agree on liking Thranduil – liking him a bit too much, even – but Bard doesn’t want to encourage Tilda developing ideas in that direction. To her, innocent mind that she possesses, it’s simple: her father likes a pretty man, so he should go out with the pretty man.

Oh, if it only were this easy.


	7. What's a rainy day without some delicious coffee-flavoured loneliness?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bard attempts to deal with the situation he's put himself in. The outcome can only be described as mixed success. At least he's not lying anymore, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is prepared to make Bard suffer some more. ~~Yes, I do enjoy it.~~

If he didn’t know Thranduil had more important things to attend, Bard would think the man is stalking him. Not really stalking, since Thranduil doesn’t manifest at Bard’s home, his usual Tesco, or at the park where he likes to take a walk, but Thranduil…lingers, for lack of a better word. The meetings with Haldir have become a kind of fixture in the mornings; by now Bard even reserves them their usual table.

Sometimes, Thranduil will drop in after work to get tea or coffee for the commute. Usually, it will be a slow time during the day and Bard will be forced to make some small talk, leaving him aching by the time Thranduil closes the door behind him.

It’s not that he actually wishes Thranduil would not come back, because Bard is sure that would be even worse than being forced to talk to him as if nothing happened between them. He can’t even be mad at Thranduil for tormenting him – the man isn’t doing it on purpose, he’s acting like a friend would: asking after the business and Bard’s children, moaning about clients who expect him to be an architectural wizard and laughing about interns who get lost on their way to the photocopier.

“How’s your…you know, you haven’t even told me whether that mysterious customer you’re seeing is a man or a woman,” Thranduil says, stirring a dash of cinnamon into his latte while Bard hands him a paper bag containing a slice of coconut-pineapple loaf cake.

“Does it matter?”

“No,” Thranduil says. “But you haven’t told me anything at all.”

“It’s weird,” Bard grumbles, “talking to you about this.”

Thranduil snorts. “Because we’ve seen each other naked?” he asks. “How precious.”

“Sod off.”

Thranduil needs to stop asking. Otherwise, Bard might panic and actually start hitting on a customer just to keep the tale going. He’s not good at lying – it stands to reason he won’t be able to make up some person on the spot if Thranduil pushed and prodded a touch more resolutely.

* * *

“Your coffee, your Highness,” Bard snorts as he brings the cup over to Thranduil’s table on an early Wednesday afternoon.

“What is it with the royal titles?” Thranduil asks, but he can’t quite hide a smile. “Haldir called me the same this morning.”

“You’re just such a regal, commanding presence,” Bard says.

“Well, off you go then, peasant,” Thranduil gives a perfect impression of haughtiness and waves Bard away. “Serve those unwashed masses at the register.”

Bard goes back behind the counter, shaking his head with a smile. He misses the banter between them. He misses Thranduil.

* * *

As a single father of three children and a business owner, there’s hardly anything that can still grip Bard by surprise. You tend to think you’ve seen it all.

Being on his knees in the back room of his cafe, trousers and pants bunched at his knees and his hands digging into the run-down velour upholstery of the backrest while Thranduil is driving into him with unholy force, however, that does surprise him. Mainly because he’s not sure how it happened.

If he were to retrace his steps, which is difficult right now, because Thranduil’s deep moans are filling his ears while there’s beads of sweat running down his spine and Thranduil’s fingers digging groves into his hips – but if he were to retrace, it would stand to reason that his first mistake was getting out the whiskey earlier.

Thranduil came in, looking tense and downright terrible. Something has gone wrong with the calculations for a project, blowing the budget out of proportion and Thranduil has been in meetings all day, trying to avert the crisis. He’ll probably have to fly out to Sydney (apparently that’s where the project is) to clean up the mess and if he’s unlucky, he might not be able to take Haldir with him because he needs the man in London to keep the ship afloat. He doesn’t trust his business partner Celeborn to do it right. 

Bard suggested a shot of whiskey in Thranduil’s coffee and proceeded to follow his own advice. They had a second round, just sans coffee. There’s a distinct possibility they had another two or three rounds after that. It all sounded very familiar to Bard – might be because he’s been there before, just that last time, it had been Thranduil’s office. And he’d had enough sense back then to put a stop to it before they did anything stupid. Though back then, he hadn’t been quite as much of a miserable, lovesick fool.

Yes, the whiskey had been the start of a bad idea. He should stop drinking, because he’s sensing a pattern involving Thranduil and ill-advised drinking.

One of Thranduil’s hands grips the junction between Bard’s neck and his shoulder, hard. Bard can feel the half-moon crescents forming just over his collarbone. It’s at odds with the silken strands of Thranduil’s hair caressing Bard’s sides and back, soft as a feather. The display by itself must look decadent, Thranduil’s hair shielding them like a curtain. His thrusts are growing more forceful, filling the room with the slapping sound of skin on skin.

Thranduil’s climax is not a grand orchestra of sounds, never has been. It’s a soft exhale, coupled with a tightening of his fingers, threatening to press bruises into the skin above Bard’s hip and collar bone.

Bard doesn’t have much time to catch his breath before Thranduil pulls out of him. Not that he would truly wish to catch his breath now because contrary to the other man, Bard is still strung tight. The muscles in his thighs are trembling and his so far neglected erection is jutting up, begging for attention. Thranduil’s force has made it impossible to take himself in hand unless he wanted to bang into the backrest of the couch face first. Maybe now, he can–

Thranduil interrupts his train of thought by grabbing him around the midsection and turning him around into a seated position. Then, he sinks to his knees before a Bard with far too much grace for a man who just had an orgasm. Christ, Thranduil has never before kneeled before Bard, like a sinner waiting for absolution. Bard is ready to burst a vessel right there.

“Oh shit,” Bard hisses as Thranduil wraps his lips around his cock and Bard finds himself with a lapful of platinum blond silk. All he can do is sink his hands into it and hold on, because Thranduil doesn’t go easy.

Holding on is useless, really. Thranduil still has him strung so tight from before, it doesn’t even take two minutes before the simmer in his lower belly boils over, abdominal muscles clenching while he comes with a satisfied groan. Bard’s head falls back on the cushions as Thranduil’s tongue laps along his waning, oversensitive erection.

 

Thranduil rests his cheek against Bard’s thigh for a moment while Bard twirls a strand of Thranduil’s hair between his fingers. He tries to stack a mental brick wall against the onslaught of his own voice yelling inside his head that he’s a pathetic idiot. The success rate is equally pathetic. Mainly because he _is_ a pathetic idiot – nothing says that better than losing your pants when the guy you’re in love with bats his eyelashes long enough. Not that Thranduil had to bat his eyelashes, he simply hauled Bard against the doorframe and got his way. 

Bard even managed to unlock the bonus achievement for particular stupidity because not only has he crumbled like a house of cards in a gentle breeze, he also let the guy who has a lover on each finger fuck him without protection. (After he’s been preaching safe sex up and down to his two eldest, this is extra ironic). And that’s not even considering the makeshift lube which Bard is pretty sure was Thranduil’s hand lotion. Right about now, he feels stupid with his trousers and pants dangling around his ankles and Thranduil’s hair in his lap.

The wet patch he feels spreading underneath him, soiling whatever dignity the couch had left (not much, granted; not after Bain vomited on it as a toddler), is the last straw. He nudges Thranduil’s head away and the man makes an indignant noise of protest, but begins to tuck himself back in all the same.

“Crap, I need to get home,” Bard sighs and drags a hand through his hair. Which is not necessarily true, he’s told Sigrid he’ll stay at the café for a while and sort through the paperwork that’s been piling up on his desk. She doesn’t expect Bard for dinner or bedtime. That doesn’t change the fact that he wants to bail. Right now.

“Too bad, I was hoping we might continue this somewhere else,” Thranduil smirks and fusses with his hair to detangle the strands.

“Definitely not,” Bard huffs. “This was a bad idea.”

“I didn’t hear you complain just now,” Thranduil jabs.

“That doesn’t make it any less of a bad idea,” Bard snaps, irritated that Thranduil is so nonchalant about the whole event after everything.

“Don’t snap at me if you can’t restrain yourself,” Thranduil says in his usual cold tone and rearranges his shirt. “I didn’t force myself on you.”

What’s most irritating about it, is that it’s true. Thranduil didn’t pester him or made overt advances. Bard made no attempt to stop it from happening or ever voiced his misgivings. All it shows is that Bard hasn’t managed to move past his attraction to Thranduil one bit.

“Being with whoever it is can’t be that satisfying if it takes so little to make you come back to me,” Thranduil says, opting to make a petty stab instead of keeping his mouth shut. He radiates a miasma of smugness, resting well in the knowledge that he’s ‘still got it’ or something like that.

“Are you serious?” Bard hisses.

Thranduil arches an eyebrow at him.

“You of all people don’t get to comment on who and how many I’m sleeping with,” Bard says and stabs his index finger in Thranduil’s general direction. It’s hysterical, if you think about it. He’s defending a hypothetical lover he only made up in a fit of panic.

“It was you who put a stop to our meetings because out of some manner of consideration or honesty,” Thranduil retorts. Indeed, Bard would have made quite the hypocrite of himself if the mysterious new lover had been more than an excuse. Rambling about a good foundation for a new relationship and then jumping your old lover’s bones. Yeah, not classy.

“I am aware, thank you,” Bard mutters and curses, because he’s done up his shirt wrong, starting to fiddle with the buttons again. “Since you are such an example of integrity and openness.”

This time, both of Thranduil’s eyebrows wander towards his hairline.

“I’ve never been dishonest about the nature of our ‘relationship,’” he says, already guessing what Bard referred to.

“Omission is not actually that much better,” Bard throws back. “We might have never had any agreements about exclusivity, but full disclosure would have been appreciated.”

“Full disclosure of what?”

“That I was just part of the…harem.” Yes, he’s aware he’s becoming petty and possibly sulky, too. 

“The what?” Thranduil asks in an incredulous pitch.

“Harem, collection, whatever. Perhaps it’s my fault for making the wrong assumptions, but you knew that I don’t usually go around conducting a bunch of affairs, so I might be unaware of the etiquette.”

“Bard, I told you that I don’t date,” Thranduil says and Bard can see in his face that Thranduil is just about ready to unleash his impatience on him.

“I’m not talking about dating,” Bard defends himself. Well, actually, yes he is – but that’s a can of worms he doesn’t want to open right now. “It’s just the polite thing to do. I felt stupid when I found out.”

“Why does it matter?” Thranduil asks. “You’re with someone else now.” The latter he says with an expression of having smelled something foul.

“For God’s sake, no, I’m not,” Bard says, unable to hold it back.

“What do you mean, you’re not?” Thranduil asks and narrows his eyes at Bard.

“I’m not with anybody,” Bard exclaims, letting go of his belt buckle to throw up his hands in despair. “I’ve never been. I made it up, okay?”

Now that he’s thrown it out there, he might as well come clean. Bard is far too irritated to keep lying and inventing something about a break-up or God knows what. If it goes all belly up now, at least he won’t be able to attribute it to dishonesty.

“You did what?” Thranduil asks, incredulous. “Why?”

“Bloody hell, I don’t know,” Bard sighs. “I panicked.”

Thranduil says nothing, just continues to stare at Bard as if he’s considering whether or not the other has lost his mind. Which is possible, really.

“Forget it,” Bard says, suddenly embarrassed by his outburst.

“Certainly not,” Thranduil snorts. 

“Fine, then don’t,” Bard snaps and moves to leave the office. Where exactly he plans on going, he has no idea – he can’t exactly leave the café, being the one who has to close up. Maybe he should flee into the yard until Thranduil gets the hint and lea– “Get out of my way.”

Thranduil has stepped into Bard’s path and there’s no way Bard can push his way past him, since Thranduil is not only tall as an oak tree, he’s also just as immovable.

“You don’t get to babble cryptically and then run off,” Thranduil says and pokes his index finger into Bard’s sternum, pushing him back a step.

“Yeah, and I don’t feel like talking anymore, so would you please bugger off?”

“Bard!” Thranduil’s tone is sharp.

Bard knows he could insist to pass. He also knows that Thranduil wouldn’t resolve to any physical measures to make him talk. But suddenly, he’s tired – Bard feels the fight leave him like air from a punctured balloon.

“If it pleases you so much: I had to break it off because I’m not made for sex without strings,” Bard says. “I saw it head into a direction where I cared too much, but I panicked and thought you might consider me weak.”

He shrugs and looks at a patch of wallpaper above Thranduil’s shoulder.

“You mean you…?”

“Yes, it means this idiot here was incapable of keeping his feelings in check and fell in love with your cold arse,” Bard nearly snarls. Really, does he need to spell it out more? Just to rub it in a little? “I couldn’t stand the thought of being just another notch in your bedpost. I’ve got only myself to blame so would you _please_ let me pass?”

Thranduil still seems to parse Bard’s statement and his eyes are wide with surprise. Thankfully, he does step aside and gives Bard an opening to bolt. He dashes into the small, brick wall-framed yard where they keep their few outside tables. The embarrassment, the shame really, is crawling up his neck like a bad shiver.

Bard sinks into the chair in the furthest corner and leans his head back against the brick covered in a thin film of London soot and stares up into the purple-tinted sky. You don’t see many stars in London even on a good day.

Tonight, the summer sky is hung thick with grey rain clouds.

How quaint.

* * *

Even the small mercy of Thranduil taking the hint and leaving didn’t do much to soothe Bard’s frazzled nerves.

He thought about hitting a bar after he locked up the café, but then he remembered that alcohol had got him into this position in the first place and that he was still buzzing from the whiskey before. In the end, Bard got himself a cheap coffee at a corner store to sober up a little before he went home, just in case the kids were still up and about.

They weren’t – even Sigrid’s light was already off and so Bard didn’t linger and crawled into bed himself, barely managing to undress.

He’s been lying awake since, contemplating the occasional specks of light appearing at his ceiling whenever a car passes outside. Ten minutes ago, he turned on the radio at his bedside, just to have something else to listen to than the deafening silence in his head. He even chose Radio 4 just to have people talking to him – not that he’s really listened. The only thing he’s gleaned from the voices in the background is the host discussing today’s debate in the House of Commons with some former MP. 

There’s hardly any doubt that he’s blown it with Thranduil today and that he might have scared him off for good. Which solves his problem, in a way. Perhaps he can get over Thranduil now that he won’t see him anymore. Unsurprisingly, he feels no relief. The idea makes him feel even worse.

Does he even _want_ to get over him?

* * *

At once, Thranduil staking out at Laketown for whole mornings stops. He doesn’t even stop by to get coffee. If Haldir is confused by the sudden change, he doesn’t say so when he picks up an order during his lunch break. Or perhaps he’s used to Thranduil’s mood swings and writes them off as a non-issue. Bard doesn’t dare ask.

Through the grapevine (i.e. Gimli grumbling about being the only person in the flat who has ‘their shite together’) he hears that Legolas has declared his father as ‘moodier than the damn cats.’ Legolas thinks it’s because of the trip to Sydney. Bard doesn’t know whether to hope or not that it’s true. 

To say that he’s distracted is putting it mildly, Bard knows. He’s behaving like a newbie around work, mixing up orders, handing out wrong change and letting the biscuits burn to a crisp in the oven. There’s a word for that, and it’s distraction. Percy and Hilda are already looking at him funny when Bard has to chuck the tray of biscuit coal in the bin.

Bard can live with a tray of burnt digestives, but right now he’s cursing his own existence. His hand is stuck under running cold water while Bard grits his teeth against the burning pain on his fingers and hand. He’s managed to burn himself, foolishly getting his hand in the way of the milk frother that operates with hot steam. 

“Fuck,” he hisses and keeps his hand cold while Hilda fetches the first aid kit in the back.

“Bloody hell,” she mutters as the dabs the cooling ointment onto the already forming blisters. “What are you doing?”

“Steaming my hand, apparently,” Bard says and pulls a face.

“You’d better head to the doctor’s.”

“Yeah, no,” Bard huffs. “I don’t feel like waiting around for three hours.”

“Suit yourself.”

* * *

“You’ve been really distracted lately, Da,” Sigrid says, grabbing the last slice of the funghi pizza (serving frozen pizza isn’t really the height of his cooking, but his right hand is still throbbing and Sigrid’s already cooked dinner twice this week), earning herself a sharp look from Bain who’d set his sights onto the funghi, too. Thankfully, instead of raising a fuss, he just takes a slice of the Three-Cheese-and-Onion. 

“I’m fine, darling,” Bard says. “Just a bit clumsy.”

“Hilda said she’s worried about you.”

“Hilda should mind her own business,” Bard sighs and picks an artichoke off his own slice. He hates artichokes. He also hates people not minding their own business.

“Da,” Sigrid chides. “Don’t be like that.”

“What, I’m fine.”

“Tilda drew this at school,” Sigrid says, holding up a sheet of paper with her presumably latest, abundantly colourful drawing. It’s their family on some sort of meadow, flanked by flowers the size of Bard. “To cheer you up, because you look ‘a bit sad lately.’”

When did Sigrid have the time to learn her mother’s sardonic tone? All the while, Tilda nods eagerly. 

“That’s lovely, sweetheart,” Bard tells Tilda and ruffles her hair. “Your da is just exhausted, that’s all.”

“And that wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Mr Orophersson?” Sigrid asks and gets up to put the kettle on.

“No.”

“He hasn’t been in for a while.”

“He’s on a trip to Sydney.”

“Did you and Mr. Thranduil have a fight?” Tilda asks.

“No.”

Yes, those mumbled one-word-answers were sure to convince.

“You know, Da, you are allowed to talk to us,” Sigrid huffs. “I know you like to do the stiff upper lip, but you’re actually crap at it.”

“Language,” Bard says and Sigrid rolls her eyes, knowing her father would never chide her for language if he wasn’t trying to derail the conversation. “Tilda, Bain – bedtime.”

“But we’ve still got ten minutes!” Bain protests and points at the clock.

“I’m waking you up ten minutes early tomorrow, how’s that?” Bard asks and Bain pulls a face. “Go get ready.”

“You are so lame,” Bain moans and stomps out of the kitchen, leaving his dirty plate on the table. God, Bard really hates puberty. He should have apologised to his parents for being a teenager when he had the chance. Then he hears the bathroom door slam. Hard.

“Slam that door again and your arse is grounded,” Bard calls loud enough for Bain to hear. The last time Bain slammed the door to his bedroom, Bard had to fix the hinges. The bathroom door is rickety enough as it is.

At least Tilda goes quietly. Although that leaves him alone with Sigrid, who will no doubt grill him. Why do people do this children thing again?

“Is there any way I can convince you to drop any and all questions you’re thinking of?” Bard asks when Sigrid puts down a mug of fresh tea in front of him.

“Maybe once you stop behaving like you’re on EastEnders.”

“Oi!”

“What?” Sigrid asks. “You can deny it all you want, you are hung up about Mr. Orophersson.”

Bard elects to stir his tea instead of taking her bait.

“Oh, you’re worse than Harry and Jenny from my maths class. Those two have been mooning over each other for the whole year, too, but unlike you, they’re seventeen!”

“I am not mooning over anybody,” Bard mutters. He is absolutely not discussing this with his own daughter.

“Da, please,” Sigrid sighs and Bard would swear up and down she sounds exactly like her mother. “You know, you’re allowed to feel bad occasionally? I’m not going to think anything less of you.”

Easier said than done. He’s so used to shoving his problems aside and not talk to anybody about anything that doing so now would feel like defeat. It may be stupid, but he doesn’t want his kids to worry about him. It’s not their job. Bard realises it’s becoming harder and harder as the children grow older – he can’t appease Sigrid with a smile and words of reassurance like he can do with Tilda.

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I can’t make you talk if you don’t want to,” Sigrid says and looks disappointed. “But you’ve changed since you met Mr. Orophersson. At first, I’d thought for the better because you needed a friend and you seemed happier. I’m not so sure now.”

Sigrid shrugs and gathers her mug, leaving Bard alone at the table. He hears the telly switch on in the living room a minute later and rests his forehead on the cool surface of their kitchen table. Fending off all of Sigrid’s good intentions makes him feel horrible, but he can’t talk about it to her without lying. Quite frankly, he’s not sure if he wants to talk to anyone because it would mean he’d have to confront his own muddle of feelings. Ignoring it and shipping it off to some dusty corner in his mind labelled ‘NOPE’ sounds more appealing.

Suddenly feeling tired, he leaves his half-empty mug of tea behind in the kitchen, wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed and not dream of anything.


	8. On the bright side, my coffee will never get cold in hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than the others – sorry about that, but you'll see at the end why I had to finish it there. And I should probably apologise for the ending. ~~Not really, I enjoy the torment~~

Bard is determined not to think about Thranduil. While the theory is great, putting it into practice is more than difficult. Work doesn’t take his mind of it unless there’s a rush, because the café is chock-full of memories about Thranduil. That his favourite spot is the ornate chair by the window, but that he’ll usually sit closer to the bar so he can speak to Bard more easily. That he prefers brown sugar over white sugar and managed to convince Bard to stock agave syrup because he likes it even more than brown sugar. That he reads The Times first in the morning and grumbles and huffs about the articles before he moves on to The Guardian and looks slightly less irritated. Occasionally, he will mutter in Icelandic at his iPad whenever he browses the news sites of his home country. On the odd occasion that Legolas accompanies his father, the boy will look amused by his father’s running commentary in a language Bard wishes he could understand.

Bard is thoroughly frustrated with his inability to shut out Thranduil, so that once he reaches the quiet portion of the afternoon and has sent Percy home he sets out to make a batch of sandwiches he’s actually planned to do the next morning. Pureeing chickpeas into hummus and frying off cheese slices isn’t quite as zen as Bard hoped, so he is more than glad to see Aragon appearing in the doorway and abandons the sandwiches in favour of Aragorn’s usual. Aragorn mutters a greeting and sits down at the bar, heaving his messenger bag and a stack of flyers to the ground. His hair is windswept and he looks relieved to be sitting down – he probably just finished one of his tours. Aragorn is part of a group of history students offering ‘alternative’ tours of the East End, off the beaten Brick Lane and Jack the Ripper path and even though they operate solely on tips, he appears to generate a decent income through it.

Today, his appearance is more tired and agitated than usual. There’s a hardened set of his jaw and a nervousness to his gaze that isn’t there even when he’s had a particularly irritating group of tourists to herd around. 

“You don’t look so hot,” Bard says as he puts down a mug of hot white chocolate with extra cinnamon and a dash of chili powder in front of Aragorn. “If I may say so.”

Aragorn looks up from his phone and fidgets with a strand of hair that’s escaped the bun he’s wearing.

“It’s fine,” he mumbles and shoves his phone into a pocket.

“I’m not a barman as such, but if you _do_ want to complain to me, I’ll be right here,” Bard offers and goes back to putting together halloumi sandwiches. One of the toasted rye bread slices breaks when he puts it on the top, so he holds it out to Aragorn who hesitates for a second before taking it.

“Thanks,” he says and takes a bite.

It’s a small consolation to Bard that someone else isn’t feeling great today. Everybody else today has been coming in with a brilliant smile and raved about the _amazing weather_. Not that he takes pleasure in Aragorn feeling badly, the kid has become pretty much part of the inventory in the café and Bard cares about him.

“Everything going okay with Haldir?” Bard asks. Perhaps Aragorn just misses Haldir, who’s on that Sydney trip with Thranduil after all. Aragorn pulls a face that bears a striking resemblance to someone who’s bitten into a lemon. “Ah.” Perhaps not just missing him then.

“We had a fight and now he isn’t returning my messages.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Bard offers. “Bad?”

Aragorn pulls the face again. “I don’t know,” he sighs. “But I think so.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“It’s fine.”

“You look awfully not-fine for someone who continues to repeat how fine everything is,” Bard teases. Aragorn sighs. 

“I bullied Legolas into telling me more about Haldir, because he’s pretty tight-lipped himself,” Aragorn mutters around the rim of his cup.

“Didn’t like what he had to say?”

“He was actually full of compliments, for the most part.”

“But?”

“It’s stupid, but he said that Haldir used to get on his nerves by introducing him to a new boyfriend every few weeks…” Aragorn sighs and leaves the sentence hanging, though Bard doesn’t need to hear to know what the problem is.

With Haldir a few years older, it’s a reasonable assumption that he might have had more relationships than Aragorn. Aragorn has a tendency to be self-depreciating and brooding on top of his relative inexperience. The insecurity appears to have gotten the better of him. Bard remembers being insecure himself when he was younger and he had a boyfriend or girlfriend with more exes.

“Man, I sound like a jealous twat,” Aragorn says.

“I nearly read my wife’s journal back when we’d been together just for a few months because I’d met her ex who was tall, dark and handsome,” Bard says with a lopsided smile. “She didn’t even particularly like him anymore.”

Bard had in fact read her journals, but that was years and years later, two years after Elke had died. She’d kept them in a box in the basement, the last time she’d written anything had been just after she’d become pregnant with Bain. Still, Bard likes to leaf through them occasionally, seeing the words written in her untidy hand. The first time he’d felt bad about reading the entries, but it felt too much like hearing her voice again to just have them sit in a box and gather dust and moisture. He thinks about giving them to Tilda one day, just so her mother can become a person to her.

“It’s okay to be a bit jealous sometimes,” Bard says and opens the dishwasher, steam curling up in his face.

“He didn’t even give me a reason,” Aragorn says and takes another bite of the halloumi sandwich. “I had a go at him over a joke. Called me from Sydney saying he’s at a beach bar alone because his boss didn’t need him at the dinner, so he’s now looking for food and the ripped, shirtless surfer at the bar would be a great dessert.”

Bard pulls a sympathetic face. It’s the kind of joke you can make to your partner when you’re secure in your relationship. If you’re not though, it might just come back to bite you in the arse.

“And I suppose you didn’t have a measured conversation about the state of your relationship and where you want to take it in the future,” Bard says.

“Yeah…no,” Aragorn’s voice is pained. “Basically, I’ve accused him of only playing with me until something better comes along and I don’t think he appreciated that.” 

“Probably not.”

“And now I can’t apologise because he isn’t speaking to me.” With that, he pulls his mobile from his pocket and stares at the screen in contempt.

“Give him some time to calm down and use it to think about what _you_ want,” Bard suggests. “And then talk to him.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Aragorn says in a wry tone.

“Look, I don’t want to dust off old platitudes, but you really do need to communicate,” Bard says. “It’ll bite you in the arse otherwise.” Pot, kettle, the voice in the back of his mind says.

“I’ve noticed,” Aragorn grumbles.

“One argument isn’t the end of the world,” Bard assures him. “My wife would go to town on me sometimes, I’d feel two inches tall at the end of it. And we made it through all of those arguments.”

“By ‘communicating’ everything?”

“Nah,” Bard shrugs. “Would be too easy to follow my own advice. But when we did, it helped. That’s one upside to arguing – it forces you to speak to each other to sort it out.”

Not that an argument always solved everything. Thranduil’s face appeared before his inner eye, making the bitterness in his mouth well up. That last argument had cost him Thranduil’s friendship, but he could have kept it from becoming this bad if he’d only had the nerves to speak up.

“Speak to Legolas again?” Bard suggested. “He knows Haldir so well, I’m sure he has more insight than I do.”

Aragorn hummed in a non-committal tone. “I’ll make a fool of myself.”

“That’s love, mate,” Bard sighs. “Makes an idiot out of a lot of us.”

“Remind me why we do it anyway.”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

* * *

Bard continues to hold onto his sullen mood, and it irritates him that he holds onto it, in turn making him even more upset. He’s stuck in a cycle of _would have, could have, should have_ and recognising that he is doesn’t make it go away any easier.

He knows Thranduil is back from Sydney, but he hasn’t shown up in the café, letting either Haldir pick up coffee, or on one bitter occasion his secretary Meludir – who was so cloyingly nice to Bard that he felt like dumping laxatives in the boy’s coffee. And in Thranduil’s as well, while he was at it. But that was a rare spike in his otherwise apathetic mood. He smiles at his customers knowing it looks fake and hasn’t worked on the weekly special three times in a row, delegating the task to Hilda and Sigrid. Often enough he elects to sit in his rickety office instead of working behind the counter, a matter that has been virtually unheard of before. Not that he gets much done there, except pushing one stack of paper towards another, flipping through supply catalogues dating back to 2006 and resolutely ignoring the couch that makes him remember the last time he’s seen Thranduil. 

Bard’s sent Sigrid home at closing time, shoving twenty quid at her to get some Tikka Masala from the place around the corner to take home to the rest of the brood. He promises to close up and be home soon, and she relents after some choice words about him needing to stop moping around in the office. Of course she’s right, but he doesn’t tell her so. After he handles the till and writes down the supplies he’d have to order next week (the number of brown sugar sticks remaining is alarmingly low) he decides to ignore the bills that need paying and just go home. Reading a bit of Harry Potter to Tilda is more likely to make him perk up than seeing the state of his bank account. They’re not doing too bad at the moment, but Bard fears the dishwasher at the café might draw its final breath soon and the damn gastro dishwashers are bloody expensive, even when buying them used. Their current machine has started making unpleasant rattling noises and it’s just another thing he doesn’t need right now. For the first time in seventeen years, Bard is actually craving a fag. Not the occasional stress smoking he does and which makes him feel bad from the first drag. A proper calm-yourself-smoke. The last one he’d smoked on the day Sigrid was born, when his first-time-father nerves had been so frazzled, Elke had kicked him out of the labour ward for a time-out. 

But the thought of what a pack of smokes goes for these days throws a wrench in his cravings. Not to mention the kids would have his head.

Outside, there’s a chill that makes Bard turn up the collar of his jacket against the temperature, tucking his chin in like a turtle. The light drizzle that has been going on since the afternoon is still there, though it’s hardly strong enough to make a lifelong Londoner bat an eyelash.

If he walks quick enough, he might still catch the early 242 bus – Bard prefers it because he won’t have to change at Trowbridge Estate like with the 388.

The high street is busy as ever, both in cars in people, queues building outside the most popular eateries. Shoreditch’s reputation as the new trendy place to be is visible here in particular, with all the folks from the City willing to spend their money here these days. Bard on the one hand hopes it might bring more people into the café in the future, but as just another small business owner, he fears the approaching gentrification. He’s lost a couple regulars who were forced to move further out because their rent had gone through the roof (or their buildings got torn down to make space for a luxury hotel). 

Thranduil probably welcomes gentrification, Bard thinks, unable to keep his mind from him for five minutes at any given time. New luxury hotels, office towers and upper class flats are what floats money into his pockets.

As any Londoner worth his salt Bard ignores red lights (and chides his children if they do), seeing the 242 bus in the distance and not wanting to wait fifteen minutes for the next. A flash of white blond hair that’s far too short to belong to Thranduil catches his attention anyway and he turns around to the pedestrian as he crosses the high street. The headlights of a car appear in his peripheral vision, but it’s too little, too late.

All he remembers is crushing, searing pain. After that, everything goes black.


	9. Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the other end of the city, Thranduil enjoys a quiet evening until Haldir calls as the bringer of bad news.

Thranduil is sitting at his kitchen island with his laptop, completing the spreadsheet of vegan restaurants in Sydney. For every city he’s been to, he keeps a spreadsheet on the food, just so he has an alternative ready whenever a business partner suggests yet another visit to the steak house. There’s a glass of red wine sitting next to the computer (it’s the second for him, the office has been hell today. One of these days, he will strangle that infernal Oakenshield chimpanzee) and Feren is rolled up on the countertop, resting his sleeping head against Thranduil’s hand. He knows he shouldn’t let the cats on the counters, has chided Legolas more times than he can count whenever Legolas let them drink from the faucet. Well, Legolas isn’t there to find out.

While he’s already working on it, he amends his London spreadsheet as well, adding the little bistro Galadriel has found in Hampstead that serves a vegan special. Thranduil isn’t particularly fond of Galadriel, but he doesn’t turn away the business cards of vegan restaurants she drops in his inbox. He’s aware Galadriel feels the same about him, but she likes Legolas and so feels she has to be gracious to his father.

He creates the row for “The Laurels” but his eyes rest on “Laketown”, prompting memories Thranduil would rather not dwell on. Thranduil hasn’t spoken to Bard in weeks now and resents the fact that he still wants to pick up his phone and send him a message. Deliberately staying away from the café hasn’t done much to disperse the frequency with which Bard manages to occupy Thranduil’s mind. The damn fool.

Being alone is what Thranduil does best; he doesn’t even remember when he hasn’t had a feeling of isolation. Usually, he doesn’t mind – the more surprising it has been how much he likes Bard’s company. Naive, charming Bard who’s so different from Thranduil.

Thranduil isn’t heartless, contrary to popular opinion. He knows Bard must feel hurt over those last weeks and Thranduil wishes he wouldn’t but there isn’t much you can do when you’re the one causing it. Bard asked him to leave, so he did. Thranduil doesn’t want relationships and Bard has made it clear that this is where their paths divide. Certainly, they could have tried again to be no more than friends, but it’s naive to think the pull between them would just disappear into thin air.

Thranduil takes a sip of his wine (with his left, because he doesn’t want to disturb Feren) and is startled by his private mobile going off in his yoga bottoms. Feren is jerked awake by the booming percussions of Woodkid’s “Iron” and slithers off the counter with an indignant glare. 

Who is calling him at this hour? A glance at the taskbar of his Macbook tells him it’s nearly midnight.

Haldir’s name is written across the screen and Thranduil cannot fathom what he could possibly want in the middle of the night. As a rule, Haldir does not call him after 10 pm unless something is on fire (literally or metaphorically). They have no deadlines coming up this week that would require either of them to be working this late. Thranduil doesn’t feel any particular desire to speak to Haldir, so he lets it ring through. He has no voicemail on his private phone, requiring people to call again if it’s important and leave no message expecting him to return the call.

Barely thirty seconds after the last ring, he receives a text.

[From: Haldir; 23:47: i know you’re not sleeping, pick up]

Now, that was nearly rude even for Haldir’s lax manner around him. The phone starts ringing anew and Thranduil figures he might have to hear him out after all.

“What is it?” he asks and puts the phone to his ear, topping off his wine with his free hand.

“You might want to get in a cab to Royal London Hospital,” Haldir says without much preamble and a cold hand seems to close around his heart.

“Is Legolas—“

“Legolas is fine,” Haldir interrupts him. “It’s Bard.”

“Bard?” Thranduil finds himself unable to remain seated. His insides seem to have curled into a tight ball. “What happened?”

“He got hit by a car.” He pushes away the surging panic, forces himself to breathe and listen.

“How do you even know about this?” Thranduil asks, uselessly. It doesn’t even matter how Haldir knows but he isn’t thinking straight. The cold feeling in his chest only relented a fraction when Haldir said Legolas was alright.

“My boyfriend was showing a group of tourists around on a night walk, he’s doing these East End Tour things. He saw there was an accident and went over to help because he’s got first aid training. Turned out it was Bard and they let Aragorn ride to A&E with him. He was in pretty bad shape.” The latter, Haldir adds with some hesitation. “He called me after they took him to surgery.”

Thranduil leans back against the tall windows of his kitchen, the cold from outside seeping into his back. Bard in emergency surgery. His heart seems to pound against his ribcage as if wanting to break free from it.

“They called his daughter,” Haldir explains. “His kids are on their way, but Aragorn says they don’t have any family in London…”

“Send a cab here,” Thranduil orders, taking two steps at a time upstairs to his bedroom. “I’ll be ready in five.”

* * *

The cab drive nearly takes an hour, and it’s only thanks to the late hour that they don’t run into any inner London traffic jams. Thranduil has half a mind to bribe the driver to go faster, but doesn’t because that only ever works in movies. The icy cold fear has seeped into his bones and makes him clench his hand around his phone. He must keep a level head, he can’t let the fear take over his mind. Thranduil isn’t even sure he still knows how to panic after this many years of schooled indifference. If he wants to be of any use, he needs to be able to function. He’s instructed Haldir to text him updates, should there be any. The only message he’s received is fifteen minutes into his journey when Haldir let him know that Bard’s children had arrived and that Aragorn would stay with them until Thranduil joined them.

Not that Thranduil has any particular rapport with Bard’s children. He’s interacted with Sigrid when he was at the café and has encountered the youngest, Tilda, twice. The boy he has only seen once from afar. But Bain and Tilda are still young, even Sigrid at seventeen will be overwhelmed with two siblings while fearing for her father’s life herself. Bard has once said that they have an aunt in the Manchester area and an uncle and two cousins who live in Spain. With no family to help them right now, it must be frightening. Thranduil isn’t certain he can be of any comfort to them though. He could barely comfort Legolas when his son needed it.

With the help of a nurse, Thranduil finds Bard’s children and Aragorn in a small waiting area of drab fornica chairs in what Thranduil once titled ‘hospital blue’ in his head, a table stacked with magazines proclaiming the newest royal marriage and birth, and poorly watered potted plants in the corners. Little Tilda has a colouring book in her hands, filling the empty spaces with bright green, but she displays little enthusiasm for the activity. Bain is huddled into one of the chairs, staring absent-mindedly at the wall opposite, barely even blinking. Sigrid sits next to her brother, fiddling with the ends of the purple scarf around her neck, speaking to Aragorn in low tones. She looks pale and her features are lined with fear.

“Mr Orophersson” Aragorn says and stands up as he sees Thranduil. The children react to his name, all turning around to look at him. Tilda has a curious glint in her eyes, Bain doesn’t seem sure what to make of his presence and Sigrid’s brow is furrowed in what might be disapproval. Thranduil knows he’s intruding into a family crisis, Bard’s children might not receive him well.

“Thank you for staying,” Thranduil says. “Haldir will pick you up at the night-bus station.”

Thranduil doesn’t usually play the messenger for his employees, but Haldir asked him to relay the instructions since his phone was nearly out of battery at the time they spoke last. It is also an effective method to get Aragorn to Haldir’s flat without having the boy protest that he can just as well take the bus home. Haldir once told him (with quite a lot of amusement) that Aragorn feels unfit to stay in Marylebone, despite having lived in a wealthy home in Scotland with his adoptive family. After he’d inherited a sizable amount of money from his grandmother, Haldir had spent all of it buying a flat in Marylebone – remaining otherwise independent from the family money. Unlike his younger brothers who were unlikely to work a day in their life; Haldir calls them ‘Chelsea brats.’

Resigned to his fate, Aragorn squeezes Sigrid’s shoulder and gathers his bag, leaving the area with a nod to Thranduil, who sits down on a chair across from the three children.

“Have you come for Da?” Tilda asks, voice small and not as buoyant as Thranduil remembers it. Bard has always described her as a very energetic girl, but the spirit seems to have left her. It oddly pains Thranduil, despite not knowing her.

“I have,” Thranduil confirms.

“After ignoring him for weeks,” Sigrid says, bitterness evident in her brusque tone. Perhaps she knows about the nature of his and Bard’s relationship, or at least suspects, contrary to Bard’s estimation. She’s intelligent and observant, and not as much of the little girl Bard still perceives her as. Thranduil knows firsthand that the realisation that your children have grown into adults is swift and surprising.

“We had a disagreement,” Thranduil says.

“Yes, that’s what he said as well,” Sigrid snorts, unamused. “I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t think either of us would make the mistake of thinking so.”

“Dad has been distracted for weeks since your _disagreement_ ,” Sigrid says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran into traffic absent-minded.”

Thranduil raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying it’s my fault that he was hit by a car?” He speaks in a flare of emotions before he clamps down on it again. Snapping at a frightened girl is entirely unhelpful.

Sigrid pauses, then visibly deflates. “No,” she mutters. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Even though Sigrid’s accusation is a desperate one, Thranduil finds it discontenting to hear. He’s heard Haldir saying that Bard seemed different, and not in a good way. Bard’s confused feelings are not Thranduil’s responsibility, but it’s clear he’s the cause of them. The man wears his heart on his sleeve.

“Is there any word yet about his condition?” Thranduil asks.

“Not really,” Sigrid says. “He’s in emergency surgery. The doctor said something about his lung and spleen. We haven’t heard anything since.”

Thranduil nods and folds his hands in his lap. A ruptured spleen wouldn’t be the worst that could happen, a lung however is troublesome, but with instant medical attention… They can only hope the doctors won’t find any severe head trauma or lasting damage to his spine. 

“Do you think Da will be okay?” Tilda asks him, perhaps hoping that an adult might have the answer.

“Of course,” Thranduil says, seeing no use in telling a little girl that he holds no answers either. “Your father is very stubborn.”

Tilda chuckles. “That’s true. He says he’s not, but he really is!”

“Like a mule,” Thranduil agrees and earns another chuckle. It’s been a long time since Legolas was this young, but Thranduil remembers it well. Around this age, he still thought of himself as a decent parent, before he realised how many mistakes he’d made all through his son’s life. In his head, he heard Bard cluck his tongue at him, telling him to quit his noble suffering and just be a decent parent now.

“I should draw a mule for him,” Tilda says and looks in the box under the table for a piece of blank paper.

“Good idea,” Sigrid encourages her, looking relieved that Tilda found something to occupy her mind before she can start dwelling on the possibility that their father might be in true danger.

“How do you draw a mule?” Tilda asks and frowns at the paper, pencil at the ready.

“Kind of similar to a horse?” Sigrid tries.

“Come here,” Thranduil says. “I’ll show you.” It’s been some time since he’s actually drawn outside work, but a mule shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge. He used to draw quite a lot of animals for Legolas when he was little. Legolas’ room back in Iceland had looked like a forest, a project Thranduil had spent the last four weeks before Legolas’ birth on. Meanwhile, his wife had assembled the furniture. 

Drawing turns out to be the best distraction he could have hoped for. Not only is Tilda captivated by the fact that Thranduil can draw all kinds of woodland critters (after the mule come demands for an otter, a badger, a deer and -oddly- a polar bear), Thranduil even manages to get Bain’s and Sigrid’s attention with the help of pencil and paper. With three essentially strange children, there are only so many things he could have thought of. Thranduil is by no means socially inept when he wishes to be, but he is aware he’s a far cry from Bard’s warm demeanor. 

Currently they are designing an underwater palace, crammed around the low table on the ground. Bain and Tilda debate the pros and cons of having guard sharks placed at the entrance while Sigrid wonders about the materials they could use that would be strong enough to withstand the water pressure. Thranduil hasn’t done any large scale static calculations since he joined up with Celeborn and had an army of engineers at his disposal, but together with Sigrid (who turns out to be quite skilled at mathematics and physics) and the help of Google they manage to arrive at an estimate about the thickness of the glass on the upper level.

At around 2:30 Tilda and Bain agree that they should _definitely_ have guard sharks, but they would need a stable. But what does a shark stable look like?

“Mr Orophersson?” Sigrid asks as she colours in the sand across from him, not looking up.

“Yes?” Thranduil hums, still contemplating how one would store their sharks.

“If… _when_ Da is well enough, will you please speak to him and sort out whatever it is that stands between you?”

Thranduil halts his pencil for a moment, but doesn’t look up either.

“He likes to do the stiff upper lip, but he’s not been doing well lately and he won’t talk to me.” The girl sounds frustrated and Thranduil can imagine that it must be tiring to see your father suffer, but not getting through to him. Bard has been determined not to cause his children any grief as long as Thranduil has known him. Whether he’s struggling to find the money to buy Bain new shoes (because he seems to grow out of the old pair every other month), or having a terrible headache and still can’t bring himself to ask Tilda to stop singing.

“He likes you,” Bain says out of the blue, which is a surprise since he hasn’t said much at all to Thranduil. Thranduil doesn’t ask what kind of ‘liking’ Bain is referring to because he doesn’t want to go there, not in front of Bard’s children. Not when there’s a chance that Bain and Tilda don’t know that Bard’s and his relationship became much more complicated just shortly after they met. 

Thranduil sees Tilda nodding in agreement. “You should make up and be friends again.”

“What do you suggest?” Thranduil asks.

“You both apologise,” Tilda asserts. “Mrs Jeffries made me and Linda Oakes apologise because we said mean things about each other.”

“And now you’re friends again?”

Tilda nods again and Thranduil wishes the simplicity of children’s friendships would apply to adults as well. Not that an apology is a bad place to start, but it is not going to be the solution to the jumble they’ve created. That Thranduil has created because he went against his better judgement and slept with Bard. Repeatedly. He saw the complications coming a mile away and ignored them.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Thranduil says and goes back to work on his shark shed.

* * *

Bard isn’t sure what’s happening. There’s sound and light, but he can’t put them into context. He has no idea where he is, just that his head is pounding and his brain feeling like it’s wrapped in cotton wool.

He must be hallucinating, because for a fraction of a second he thinks he sees the blurry impression of long blond hair. Thranduil hasn’t been around for weeks.

How silly his brain is.

Then it goes black again.


	10. Between coffee addicts and unbridled love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this is already the last chapter! ~~I can't believe I actually wrote a multi-chapter!~~ I want to thank everyone who took the time to leave kudos and comments, you are awesome and make my day a little brighter every time!
> 
> At the moment I'm working on an epilogue that'll appear soon-ish. I need to get through exam phase at university first, unfortunately. In the meantime, you can find me on tumblr

“Da?” Bard hears and it sounds like Sigrid, so he forces himself to focus. “Can you hear me?”

Bard tries to say yes, but it’s a strangled sound that sounds nothing like the word he had in mind. Why is his tongue to heavy? It feels like it’s made out of lead.

“Oh, thank god,” Sigrid says.

Bard focuses harder and Sigrid comes into view. She looks ashen and worried, but she’s smiling now. Tilda and Bain are flanking their older sister, staring at Bard with wide eyes, as if afraid to make a sound.

“Hey,” Bard manages, even if it’s sluggish and scratchy in execution. The sound is muffled and only now Bard notices there’s a mask covering his nose and mouth.

He understands he’s in a hospital, but he doesn’t know why. In the window behind his kids, there’s morning twilight and Bard idly wonders what he’s been doing the whole night. His chest hurts, his stomach hurts – actually, everything hurts, though it’s a dull, persistent pain. Must be medication making him feel this fuzzy. He’s experiencing the overwhelming urge to go back to sleep.

“Sleep,” Sigrid says. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Bard hardly even hears her say it as his eyelids are drooping again.

* * *

The next time he wakes, he feels more aware right away. Some of the fog in his head appears to have dispersed, and this time, he’s not wondering anymore where he is. This time he only sees Sigrid, seated at his bedside, looking at him with a grave expression.

“Don’t remove the mask,” she says, probably sensing that Bard was about to reach up and pull it off. “You need it.”

“What…” Bard say, tongue still heavy.

“You had an accident, Da.” Sigrid frowns and takes Bard’s left hand. “You fractured half your rib cage and one of the ribs punctured your lung and it collapsed. The mask helps you breathe.”

An accident? Bard can’t recall any of it. The last thing he remembers is locking up the café and heading towards the bus stop. It must have happened on the way.

“You got hit by a car,” Sigrid explains, the disapproval evident in her tone. Whether she disapproves of the fact that he got hit or that it looks like he ran into traffic, Bard has no idea. Not that he would be the first pedestrian to be maimed by the insanity that is London city traffic.

The fractured ribs explain the burning pain in his chest at least. Bard had fractured one before, when he’d fallen out of a tree at the age of eight. Clean break that healed without much fuss. This feels like a lot more fuss. A fuss that would take months to heal, probably. He doesn’t have the time for that.

Bard’s eyes travel around the room, looking for Bain and Tilda. He’s sure they were there the last time. When he looks at Sigrid in askance, she smiles and pats his hand.

“Thranduil took Tilda and Bain downstairs to the cafeteria for breakfast,” she explains and Bard could swear she said _Thranduil_ took the others to breakfast. “The doctors made an exception, letting all three of us in here at the same time, under the condition that we wouldn’t do it all the time. Visitation is over soon anyway.”

“Wait,” Bard whispers with his parched throat, his mind still stuck on the first part of the story. “Thranduil is here?”

“Yes,” Sigrid says. “He waited with us all night. His assistant told him you had an accident and he came straight away. They let him in here for a minute when you first came to after the surgery, as a favour for staying all night. But he’s not allowed in here since he’s not immediate family.”

So Bard hadn’t imagined Thranduil earlier. It was actually him, he’d come because Bard had an accident and he stayed even though he must have known he wouldn’t get to see Bard. But why? They’d ended on such a bitter note, Bard never would have thought that Thranduil would come running if something happened. Right now, he could think of a million questions to ask Thranduil. He wanted to thank him for looking after his children even though he barely knows them.

Sigrid is probably happy that he falls asleep again before he can start an inquisition about the café and whether Hilda and Percy have been informed of his mishap.

* * *

During the next few days, Bard decides that painkillers are awful. No matter that they make the pain levels bearable, his head feels permanently in the clouds somewhere. He sleeps more than he is awake, which is good because visitation in the ICU is limited and Bard can’t even move around to do anything at all.

The doctors tell him that five of his ribs were shattered in the accident, one of them puncturing his lung. Even when he goes home he’ll need to sleep in an elevated position and use breathing exercises so he won’t develop pneumonia or make his lung collapse again. Bard hates sleeping elevated. Also, he sustained a ruptured spleen that caused internal bleeding. They removed the spleen and other than a potential higher susceptibility to infections, he should be fine. His right side is littered with bruises and contusions. Dislocated shoulder, whiplash, mild concussion. Thankfully no severe head trauma. All in all, Bard got lucky – which is what he needs to remember every time he looks at the tube protruding from his chest. It drains the fluid from his lungs and Bard is weirded out by it. The oxygen to help him breathe remains until they will move him out of the ICU.

The kids drop in in pairs whenever they can. Bard is worried sick about them being alone at home, even when Sigrid assures him she’s got it covered and that they have help. Their neighbours cook an extra helping of dinner for them. Percy and Hilda have taken the café into their hands, joined by Sigrid, Bain and Tilda after school (Bain and Tilda mostly keeping out of everyone’s hair and collecting dirty dishes). At closing time, Thranduil personally comes by and ensures they get home safely. Yesterday afternoon he sent Haldir (accompanied by Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas) with a bag of groceries to ensure they have everything they need. Gimli tutted over how Bard sorts the laundry and introduced his own system, demonstrating its superiority by doing the week’s laundry in four hours. Sigrid says Aragorn and Legolas fled when Gimli got started on the laundry; apparently he’s very passionate about it and continues to pester his flatmates until they run off screaming. Aragorn is Gimli’s preferred target at the moment, complaining that Aragorn sneaked in what effectively is another flatmate and the least Haldir could do was put his poncy laundry in the right basket. Legolas even offered his help at the café last night and Sigrid relays with great amusement that Hilda was delighted to accept, saying that the customers love a handsome face at the till. Right now, he’s being shown the ropes by Percy and Hilda and Bard has a little sympathy for the boy; his two employees can be intense. In the good way, but still intense.

Bard has lost track of the days, and the boredom is overwhelming when he isn’t high on painkillers. When they finally, finally tell Bard he’s well enough to be transferred to the normal ward, he has to resist the urge to kiss the nurse (not that he could have with an oxygen mask, an arm in a sling and excruciating pain in his chest in the way). Never has he been more delighted to get to use the bathroom on his own. They want to keep him for another ten to fourteen days to make sure his lung is on the mend and that he doesn’t develop an infection. It’s the longest period of time Bard has ever spent lying around doing nothing and he knows he’ll be stir-crazy by the end of it, but he hasn’t got much choice. The children have threatened him with bodily harm if he so much as lifts a finger before he’s explicitly allowed to do so. Tilda, Bain and Sigrid can be an intimidating bunch if they set their mind to it.

“Da?” Sigrid asks, looking up from the magazine she’s brought. It’s day two of his stay in the normal ward and Bard already wants to kill his roommates. One of them is an elderly man who seems to use every waking minute to complain to everyone about everything -- from the weather to the pillows via the bread served at breakfast and the incompetency of the staff. And when he’s not awake and complaining, he’s snoring. His other roommate is a guy maybe ten years younger than Bard who spends half the day on the phone having erratic conversations in a language that sounds like Russian to Bard’s untrained ear. The other roommate will in turn complain about the loud conversation, lobbing insults across Bard’s bed. It makes Bard reconsider his stance as a people person. 

“Mh?” Bard mumbles and stops scrunching up his face for a minute. The oxygen cannula that goes up his nose is beyond irritating.

“It’s okay if Thranduil comes to visit you, right?”

“Uhm, of course,” Bard says. “Why?” The man has been taking care of his children for the last few days without anyone having to ask. He has to thank him at the very least.

“I asked him yesterday when he was going to visit you and he was pretty evasive,” Sigrid says and shrugs. “I think he’s not sure if you want to see him.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Sigrid answers that question with the raise of an eyebrow, daring her father to come up with yet another lie about the reasons Bard and Thranduil weren’t talking. Bard sighs, for nearly adult daughters are a pain in the arse.

“Yes, of course he can come to see me,” Bard confirms. “Tell him that, will you?”

“Only if you promise that you two get yourself sorted.”

“Yes, yes,” Bard murmurs. “Now get off my back.”

He’s already made peace with the fact that he’ll have to see Thranduil. And if he’s being honest, he wants to see him -- not only because he’s helped since the accident, but because Bard misses him and his ridiculous complaints about the shades of slate roof tiles and insufficient thread count of the Egyptian cotton sheets Galadriel ordered for the interior of a hotel he designed. He misses the reviews on whether almond or hemp milk works best in his new mint and chocolate coffee shake or if he should have gone lighter on the coriander for the roasted veggie flatbread with cashew-coconut-’cheese’. It’s stupid and Bard is aware that he’s just about ready to set himself another trap by wishing to be friends with Thranduil again. He knows it won’t stop at friends.

From the next day onwards, he expects Thranduil to pop through the door. It makes him fidgety. Bain has brought Bard’s phone for additional distraction (the phone hadn’t even sustained a damn scratch in the accident), which is appreciated because he’ll go mad if he has to watch another episode of Antiques Roadshow, but it tempts Bard to send Thranduil a text. 

Instead, he receives a text first.

[From: Thranduil; 16:48] Would you mind if I stopped by tomorrow?  
[To: Thranduil; 16:49] Looking forward to it.

Bard would be inclined to pat his own shoulder if he could. He managed a reply not entirely idiotic. Not entirely honest either since he isn’t really looking forward to seeing Thranduil – his stomach is lurching at the idea of having to speak about the two of them, but Sigrid will kill him if he doesn’t bring it up. Perhaps he should start thinking about what he wants to tell Thranduil, but he knows he won’t. Even if he goes in with a plan, he’s likely to abandon it last minute.

The passage of the next twenty-four hours is torture. Bard beats his record on Candy Crush twice (he hates the game, god knows why he keeps playing it), pesters Sigrid for updates on the café (running smoothly, according to Percy Legolas is a natural) and reads about half of the book she brought him from the kiosk downstairs (a thriller with a lot of blood, Bard has never been one for high brow literature) which is an irritating affair if you can only move one arm freely. Thranduil hasn’t mentioned a time and Bard doesn’t want to ask, but it’ll be after work for certain.

Thranduil materialises in the doorway two hours before Bard would have expected him. Which is just as well, since at least that way he can’t work himself into a panic at a languish pace. He does it in 0.5 seconds instead. Good thing he isn’t hooked to a heart monitor anymore.

Of course Thranduil looks as if he stepped off a glossy magazine page. Silver grey slacks, a blood-red dress shirt and a waistcoat in the same silver grey as the slacks. A striped dark grey tie winds around his neck and as usual it’s tight enough that Bard worries about Thranduil’s oxygen intake. His hair looks like from a shampoo advertisement and makes Bard acutely aware that his hasn’t been brushed properly today and that he needs a shave. Badly. He hasn’t shaved since the accident and is now well on the way to the full lumberjack look. It’s not his best look. The only thing that he could say in his favour is that it’s bloody difficult shaving with one hand.

“Hello, Bard,” Thranduil says and attempts something like a smile.

“Hi,” Bard says and gestures to the chair next to his bed.

The universe shows him small mercies. Elderly Complaint Man has been taken to surgery an hour ago and Russian Phone Man is fixated on a film on his tablet with his earbuds in. At least he won’t have to have an awkward conversation with an audience.

“You look…” Thranduil starts.

“Like I got hit by a Range Rover?” Bard suggests.

“Yes,” Thranduil agrees, unable to hide a smile. “How are you feeling?”

“The same,” Bard says with a grin. “But the industrial strength painkillers help with that.” He lifts his left hand to show the cannula feeding him antibiotics, painkillers and saline.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Thranduil says. “For a man who got hit by a Range Rover.”

“Yeah, could have been much worse,” Bard agrees. “I got lucky.”

Thranduil nods and smoothes invisible creases out of his waistcoat. If this wasn’t Thranduil, Bard would think that the other man was nervous.

“I really need to thank you for taking care of the kids,” Bard says. “I heard you stayed with them the whole night when I was in surgery.”

“It’s nothing,” Thranduil says. “Haldir called me, I couldn’t just sit at home knowing you’re in surgery and your children waiting alone.”

“Still, you have no obligation to me or my family.”

“It’s not about obligation,” Thranduil says with finality.

“After the way we parted the last time, I was pretty sure you didn’t want to see my face again,” Bard mutters and takes feigned interest in his bag of antibiotics. 

“Bard, I was afraid you’d die,” Thranduil says. “That certainly overrules any petty argument.”

“It wasn’t petty,” Bard sighs.

“No, but my point still stands,” Thranduil says. “Whatever grudges we had, they weren’t more important than your life.”

Bard can only nod, not knowing what else to say. He hasn’t really expected Thranduil to be cold enough to hold onto a grudge at all costs, but it’s a relief to hear it from the man himself. That he still actually cares, despite what happened.

“Tilda considers you a wizard with a pencil these days,” Bard decides to switch the topic. “She was very impressed with your woodland critters.”

“It’s the only thing I’m good at with children,” Thranduil smiles. “Legolas liked it when he was young.”

“For having such a bad father, your son turned out rather well,” Bard teases him.

“Yes, I don’t know how that happened,” Thranduil says, but he’s smiling proudly. “And so far, he hasn’t set your café on fire.”

“The others say he’s a natural,” Bard laughs. “I should keep him on.”

“You may,” Thranduil says. “I fired him from the job in my company’s mail room.”

“You what?”

“He worked at Eryn Lasgalen’s mail room because he’s apparently only willing to take my money if he gets to do menial work for it,” Thranduil quips. “I fired him so he could officially work for your café.”

“Thank you…I think.”

“He was wasted in the mail room anyway,” Thranduil smiles.

“I’ll need the help,” Bard sighs. “My arm will be in a sling for a while and I’m not allowed to exert myself for a couple of months. Not that could, with half my ribcage pulverised.” He pulls a face. He’s not used to inactivity but he’ll be forced to endure a long while of it. With all the damage he won’t be able to do much and even after he heals, he will have to be careful with his lungs and immune system. A removed spleen is usually not damning you to considerable long-term consequences, but he is potentially more susceptible to infections which you can’t afford either when you’re trying to run a business. 

“Bard, if you need any help once you’re released, don’t hesitate to ask,” Thranduil says. “And I don’t just mean at work. I’m willing to help. We’re friends.” On the last word, Thranduil hesitates, even if it’s just for a split second.

“Are we?” Bard asks, sadness dampening his smile. Thranduil’s answering smile doesn’t look much better. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “The last few months were a muddle.”

“Sigrid insists that we sort ourselves out.”

“Yes, she made similar implications when she talked to me,” Thranduil chuckles.

“Look, I’m just as crap talking about feelings as you are,” Bard says. “But she’s probably right.”

Thranduil makes a noise that sounds like agreement and looks out to the window for a moment. To steel himself, probably, because Bard does the same.

“I guess we went wrong from the beginning,” Bard sighs. “I shouldn’t have agreed to this weird friends-with-benefits thing.”

“Me neither, Bard,” Thranduil says with an uncomfortable smile. “I knew it was a bad idea to sleep with someone I felt I could be friends with and yet I did.”

“And I knew from the beginning that I wanted to be more than your friend,” Bard says. “Even if I told myself that I don’t have time for it and that we were too different to work, so I should be happy with what I get. Then I went and I got ideas about what we might become, knowing that it wouldn’t happen.”

“And I strung you along,” Thranduil interjects.

“You didn’t promise anything.”

“Neither did I discourage you,” Thranduil insists. “Everything I could have used to dissuade you, I didn’t.”

“Like me being part of the collection?” Bard can’t resist bringing it up. It still stings.

“That’s the crux,” Thranduil sighs. “You weren’t. Nearly the whole time, you were the only one I slept or went out with.”

“I get that I’m not interesting or inventive enough to hold your attention forever–“

“No, Bard,” Thranduil cuts him off. “Exactly the opposite and that was the problem. You were holding my attention too well. I went against my own rules again and again. I let you stay the night in the hotel. I invited you to dinner. I invited you to my home, for the love of God.”

“So?”

“I don’t do that,” Thranduil says. “Ever. I don’t spend the night with any of my lovers, much less have breakfast with them the morning after. I have no dinner dates or divulge details of my personal life. Most never even get my personal phone number. None of them have ever been to my home. Just you.”

Bard swallows past a lump in his throat. “We were friends. I mean. That’s bound to be different,” he mutters.

“That wasn’t just us being friends,” Thranduil sighs. “Do you know when I started sleeping with Meludir?”

“I sure hope that’s a rhetorical question because I don’t and I’m not sure I–“

Again, Thranduil doesn’t let him finish: “I was about to ask you to join me on a trip to Barcelona.”

“A business trip?”

“No,” Thranduil snorts. “I wanted you to see Barcelona. It’s tremendously interesting in terms of architecture and you said you’ve never been to the continent. So, I was effectively about to ask you to a romantic getaway. I panicked – it dawned on me what we were heading towards. What I was heading towards. Meludir was the knee-jerk reaction to it. And even then I didn’t manage to let you know about him to push you away. I still don’t know how you found out.”

“Legolas,” Bard says automatically, still digesting the information Thranduil had just whacked him over the head with. “He told me he was glad we became friends because you lovers never last long, for example the secretary you were screwing at that point.”

Thranduil grimaces. “I wasn’t aware he knew.”

“Your son is pretty clever,” Bard quips. “Your own words, more or less.”

Thranduil releases a heavy sigh, leaning back in the no doubt uncomfortable hospital chair.

“Shouldn’t you have been relieved when I came by to break it off, then?” Bard asks. “And not turn up at the café even more often?”

“Of course I should have,” Thranduil says. “And naturally I went against the logical solution of putting some distance between us. Let you have that other person. Instead I proceeded to stalk you like a jealous ex.”

“You were jealous?” Hard to believe, even if it makes sense, looking back. Bard’s coffee is hardly good enough to justify coming up to Shoreditch every morning for a meeting. Asking Sigrid about a new partner, that one Bard had put down to Thranduil sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong because Bard had refused to relent any information. Not that he could have, with that person being made up off the cuff and everything.

A pause. Almost long enough for Bard to wonder whether Thranduil would just ignore the question until Bard moves to a different topic. “Yes,” he says in the end. Nothing else.

“You stopped speaking to me after that last time.”

“It hammered home that I was being a fool,” Thranduil says, his eyes now continuously trained on the window. Bard is glad Thranduil isn’t looking at him. It’s easier getting this out when they aren’t forced to look the other into the eye. “I realised I wasn’t in control of my own feelings. You finally told me how you felt and I lashed out. I can’t even manage my own emotions, I had no idea how to handle yours. Sydney was a chance to get away and shut it out.”

“You went halfway around the world to get away from me?” Bard half-jokes.

“To get away from the fact that I was developing feelings to you that went beyond friendship or mere attraction.”

“Why are you so terrified?” The question has been on the tip of Bard’s tongue for a few minutes now. Thranduil answers with a humourless laugh.

“Bard, I haven’t been in a relationship since I was twenty,” Thranduil says. “Ten years I told myself that my wife might come back, even if I didn’t truly believe it anymore. I felt ashamed when I even looked at other people. After a few years I started sleeping with others, only with men, and justified it by telling myself that it wasn’t as bad as if I had sex with women. Which is warped, of course, it doesn’t make any difference. I felt a twisted sort of obligation to her and it crippled my ability to let anyone come close. It became a habit, then it became an excuse. I still miss her sometimes and I wish I knew what happened to her. But I can’t say that I still wish she would be with me. I mourn for the mother that Legolas didn’t have, though I would be lying if I said that I’m convinced we would still be married had she not disappeared. Getting married and becoming parents so young was hard on us. But I let myself be weighed down by all that could have been.”

It’s only now that Thranduil looks at him. His eyes are tired.

“You were the first one that got close to me and I didn’t even notice it,” he says. “That is what terrified me.”

Bard has no idea what to say to that. No matter how much the loss of Elke still hurts sometimes, he knows he’s had it easier than Thranduil. His wife doesn’t haunt him, Bard had his chance to say good-bye. He knows she’s gone. It’s a luxury Thranduil will never have. And Bard knows Thranduil never truly dealt with what happened to him.

“I won’t claim that I get what you’re still going through,” Bard says. In a surge of bravery, he takes Thranduil’s hand with his own, even if the cannula and the oxygen monitor clipped to his index finger make it difficult. “What I experienced was entirely different, and still, I too felt this obligation to my wife. I walked away from several people because I felt like I was cheating on Elke. It took me a while to get over that feeling and I had my wife telling me she’d haunt me in my sleep if I didn’t get my arse into gear and move on when it’s time. I didn’t feel like I was cheating on her when I was with you.”

Thranduil grips his hand harder, mindful of all its attachments. “Bard…”

“I’m not trying to push you for anything you’re not ready to give,” Bard says. “The happiest I’ve been in the last few years was when I was sitting at your ridiculously large dinner table having breakfast with you in your yoga pants while your cat was trying to chew my toes off. That’s what I want and if you think you can’t do that, I’ll accept it.” It would hurt, but Bard can live with a ‘no’ if Thranduil really isn’t prepared to do this. 

“Do you still love your wife?” Bard asks. “If she stepped through this door right now and offered you a chance to pick up where you left off, would you take it?”

It’s a question Bard asked himself when he’s had doubts. Elke will always stay with him, but Bard know he’s got a place in his heart for another. And he knows who he wants to claim that space he carved out. Bard doesn’t break the silence in the room – he knows Thranduil will shut down if he oversteps the line. Allowing Thranduil to come to an answer in his own time is the only thing that will do right now. If Thranduil says yes, he’ll let him be and will try to be his friend and nothing else. It won’t be what he hoped for, but at least they’ll have clarity -- it would help Bard move on if necessary.

It feels like hours have passed before Thranduil opens his mouth.

“No,” he says, barely loud enough for Bard to catch. “I wouldn’t.”

“Then stop punishing yourself for moving on,” Bard pleads.

“I don’t know how.” Thranduil’s smile is pained, but he doesn’t withdraw his hand.

“Let me help?” Bard suggests. 

“You already have enough to deal with, Bard,” Thranduil says and this time, it’s Bard who cuts him off.

“I _want_ to,” he interjects. Thranduil looks at their entwined fingers.

“What do you suggest?” he asks, voice tinged with tentativeness. 

“Let’s start over,” Bard says and trails his fingers over Thranduil’s open palm and wrist, along the cuff of his sleeve. “All over. Let’s go back to that first coffee. Because I think that was an excellent date.” Bard has to smile when he thinks of their first meeting. The banter over their children, the easy conversation. The corners of Thranduil’s mouth twitch up into a soft smile of his own. 

“You’re not allowed back into the café for at least six weeks,” Thranduil smirks and Bard rolls his eyes.

“Sigrid told on me, huh?” he grumbles. 

“She did.”

“Traitor,” Bard grumbles. Thranduil chuckles.

“There’s a vending machine in the hall,” Thranduil smirks. “It’s nearly as good as your coffee.”

Bard looks scandalised enough to make Thranduil laugh. “Are you comparing that instant swill to my precious, hand-roasted coffee beans?”

“You don’t even like coffee that much.”

“I’m offended on my coffee’s behalf,” Bard says and narrows his eyes at Thranduil.

“I apologise,” Thranduil’s tone is mock grave and he inclines his head. “How can I make it up to you?”

“You could fetch slightly less abhorrent coffee from the cafeteria and agree to an impromptu date at my bedside,” Bard suggests and bats his eyelashes in an exaggerated manner.

“I accept,” Thranduil smiles and makes to get up, but Bard catches his forearm before he’s out of reach.

“There’s one more thing,” Bard says and pulls him forward, sealing their lips for a brief kiss.

“I don’t believe kissing was part of that first date,” Thranduil chides, but it’s obvious he’s joking.

“I’d like to propose a new chain of events,” Bard says. “Do you mind?”

It makes Thranduil laugh again, and Bard can’t remember the last time he’s heard Thranduil laugh this easily so often. Thranduil is so much more beautiful when he smiles, ten years of tension melting away from his features. Bard realises how besotted he sounds in his own head, but if anything, he’s deserved a free pass for sappy behaviour. He was just hit by a car after all.

Thranduil shakes his head, a small smile still playing around his lips. “No, I don’t mind at all,” he says and moves in for another kiss.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that took longer than I expected. I'm sorry for making everybody wait so long!
> 
> There's no much else I wanted to squeeze in, but there's only so many tangents you can go off before it becomes ridiculous. However, if there's something you're interested in – are Aragorn and Haldir still together in ten years? Does Thranduil sneak into the café on his days off to have ten cats in his lap? Will Bard ever grow to like coffee? – you can ask/prompt me here or on tumblr and I might just write something small for it.
> 
> Thanks again for all the enthusiasm this fic has received, it's been so much fun!

It doesn’t matter that it’s been five years, Bard will start most of his mornings by nearly breaking his neck on the stairs thanks to the two cats running at breakneck speed in anticipation of having their bowls filled. Naturally, they have to zoom through Bard’s legs who’s always half asleep on his way down, even though he’s getting up later than he used to for many years.

After Feren’s and Galion’s demands for food have been dealt with, Bard flips the switch on the kettle, while the coffee maker on the counter starts its work unbidden with the helpful function of advance programming. Coffee would be done once Thranduil lumbers downstairs. Thranduil will stay in bed until the last possible second – not a morning person at all, that one. Bard rummages in the fridge for the butter on the top shelf (the one that has become the non-vegan shelf where Bard hoards the butter, yogurt and cheese) and finds that they’ve run out of Tilda’s favourite yogurt. He knows there will be a dramatic performance starting in twenty minutes about the missing apricot flavour (Bain the most likely candidate to have taken it because Bard hates apricot and Thranduil hates dairy). Tilda is a teenaged menace that gives Bard all the headaches Sigrid, and to a lesser extent, Bain spared him. Thranduil takes it in stride, saying that Legolas had a similar phase and obviously managed to outgrow it. Bard hopes Tilda outgrows it fast or he’ll start regretting fatherhood one of these days.

True to his suspicions, Tilda is feeling dramatic today.

“But I _need_ that yogurt!” Tilda whines and then she glares at her brother. “You don’t even like apricot!”

Bain wipes coffee from his moustache (took him until seventeen until he was finally able to grow a decent one, though he still looks a bit ridiculous with it) and shrugs. “I felt like it.”

“You’re such an arse!”

“Oi!” Bard interjects. “Will you calm the f– will you calm down?” Bard is usually relaxed about swearing in front of his children, figuring long ago that they’ll learn it anyway, whether he does it or not. But Tilda has become a bit lippy lately and Bard feels like he shouldn’t encourage it.

“I have apricot,” Thranduil offers from where he’s still halfway disappeared into the fridge. 

“Ew, soy is gross,” Tilda huffs and Thranduil reappears into view, one eyebrow arched in mockery.

“I didn’t hear any complaints when you asked for seconds of the tofu stir fry last night,” he says.

Tilda mutters under her breath, but snatches the yogurt from Thranduil’s hold anyway and sits down at the table. Galion climbs into her lap straight away and laps at the yogurt clinging to the lid. She scratches his ears while he claims his share of yogurt. Bard has long since given up on trying to get the cats to stop helping themselves to some ‘dairy’ because it’s a habit Legolas already instilled in them (and Thranduil probably too, even if he won’t admit it). Thranduil sits down with a steaming cup of tea next to Bard who puts his hand on Thranduil’s thigh, body warmth seeping through the yoga bottoms. Thranduil, the lucky bastard, doesn’t have to be at work until ten. Bard shouldn’t complain, his day starts at 8:30 which is a delight after years of unlocking the doors at 7:00. 

And that isn’t the only change he’s gone through in the last five years.

After his accident, Bard couldn’t go back to work properly for close on four months. Two months in, he started sneaking into the office again to at least do some paperwork before he would resort to climbing the walls at home. Bard hates being useless, even if the café ran without him. Percy and Hilda know the place inside-out and Legolas proved to be an asset within the first month: a quick study, excellent with customers and not half as likely to burn himself as Bard. It made it easier for Bard to listen to his doctor and scale back on the work, though the financials worried him. To scale back, he’d need another full-time employee, a luxury that Bard couldn’t afford. He expected that he’d have to demote Legolas to a part-timer once he’d have been able to work again, though that arrangement never quite came to pass.

A flurry of events triggered mainly by Legolas’ university drop-out (which Thranduil is still not amused by) and Bard’s realisation that he simply _can’t_ work as much anymore as he used to. His back and neck have never been quite the same since the accident, seizing up when he stands for too long or lifts anything too heavy. Suddenly Bard needed less work, Legolas needed more work and Thranduil needed his peace of mind. The answer to that had been Esgaroth.

Bard had to jump through hoops for well over a year but he persevered and made it in the end. Two years ago, he actually got to open the doors to what had before been an idle idea: a cat café. Bard’s been a fan of the idea ever since he’s seen it on a documentary, but it used to be unachievable. Guaranteeing the welfare of the cats as well as making the customers happy would have taken money Bard never used to have. But that was before he managed to land himself an extremely successful partner. Thranduil had found him the perfect property and set him up with a business strategist who made sure Bard thought about absolutely everything and invested the money correctly. And despite all the grumbling, Thranduil had even gotten Galadriel to design Bard’s interior for a fraction of her usual rates.

And Thranduil can grumble all he likes, Bard loves what Galadriel did to the new place.

It’s all very Neo-Victorian in earthy colours: laurel, sage, aubergine, oxblood and chocolate blending harmoniously with rustic wooden floors and William Morris wallpaper (the actual thing. Galadriel got them on the cheap, being one of their best customers – at the beginning Bard got heart palpitations at the potential danger of the cats scratching the paper). Thanks to the large windows out front and the petroleum-style lamps, the colour scheme doesn’t make the rooms dark and cramped, but incredibly cosy instead. Bard is aware the whole style is catering quite a bit to English nostalgia and tourist expectations of England, but hell if it doesn’t look good. 

Leaving Laketown behind was one of the hardest things Bard has ever done, but after taking up the Esgaroth, Bard knew that he had needed the fresh start. The shadow of Elke had always lurked in the corners at Laketown, something Hilda had once said to him, but he’d never realised it was true. He’d left Laketown in the more than capable hands of Legolas who’d turned it into a hot-spot in no time. The Laketown had gone fully vegan and is now renowned for its vegan breakfast and brunch menu. With Legolas in charge, the old café remains in the family, sort of, and Bard likes to imagine that Elke would approve of Legolas’ energy and dedication. Even Thranduil secretly approves of it, though he still takes jabs at his son for dropping out of university. Legolas just bribes his father into complacency with the raspberry-chocolate brownies that Hilda developed. Legolas kept her as his right hand, Percy followed Bard to the Esgaroth – according to Percy to make sure that Bard doesn’t work himself into an early grave before fifty.

Bain thankfully doesn’t have to be nudged too much to leave for school, though Bard has to remind him to tuck his shirt tails in – apparently, it’s all the rage this year to leave them flapping about, but Bain’s school doesn’t look too kindly on it. Just a few more weeks and he’ll be done with school, getting his A levels after all. Bard only has his GCSEs and had always hoped his kids were smarter than him and would get their A levels even if they wouldn’t attend university. Bain is thinking about going into computer science – something Bard knows nothing of, but his son loves programming. Tilda is harder to get to leave on time, and although she does well in school, she doesn’t like it, much rather spending her time with friends or crawling through flower and vegetable beds. She’s developed a veritable green thumb and converted about half of Thranduil’s garden into beds after they moved in. Not that Thranduil minds. Quite the contrary, the two of them would passionately discuss the upcoming tomato harvest or wander the span of Kew Gardens for hours.

“Three minutes, Tilda,” Bard warns her with a glance to the clock while she still taps away on her phone.

“Relax,” she sighs and puts the device down, scraping her spoon against the bottom of the plastic yogurt container. “Can I stay at Carrie’s tonight?”

Now it’s Bard’s turn to sigh. “I’ve told you a million times to ask me before you’re already halfway out the door. Do Carrie’s parents even know about this?”

“Yes?” she says, but Bard knows that tone of voice so he continues to stare at her until she relents. “She’s asking them right now. Please?”

“You’ve already packed your bag anyway, haven’t you?”

At least she is sincere enough to look sheepish. “Yes.”

“Fine, if her parents are okay with it,” Bard sighs. “Ask me earlier next time.”

“Thanks, da!” she grins and hops off her chair, grabbing her bag.

“Seriously, why don’t you just ask?” Bard calls after her as she grabs an apple from the bowl on the kitchen counter, already on her way out. “It’s not like I say no a lot when you ask to stay with friends!”

“She already anticipates it for the next few years when you’ll start suspecting she might use those sleepovers to see boys,” Thranduil murmurs behind his morning paper. “Or girls.”

“She’s fourteen!”

Thranduil rolls his eyes. “When did you have your first girlfriend or boyfriend?”

“…Fifteen.” Bollocks.

“I’ve made my point.”

“Piss off.”

“I suppose I could always go back to Iceland if you want to get rid of me,” Thranduil mumbles around a mouthful of porridge.

At least Thranduil has started to crack jokes about Iceland. Last month, Thranduil went back for the first time since he left – his ageing mother needed to be moved into a home after a fall that had broken her femur. As the only child, Thranduil felt it was his responsibility to help, even if in the days before the flight, he was wound tight as a spring, snapping at Bard more than once. It was obvious he was anxious to go back, but Bard wasn’t up for continued treatment like a doormat and snapped back when Thranduil went to town on him for buying the wrong kind of flax seeds. Which landed them in a fight that hadn’t been resolved before the trip, forcing Bard to stew in his sour mood for two weeks. He was prepared to talk it through when Thranduil returned (and to kick Thranduil’s arse because the tosser treated him to two weeks of radio silence over bloody flax seeds), but with Thranduil, hardly any of Bard’s plans ever work out the way he envisions them. Bit of a pattern there. When Thranduil did come back, he looked slightly ashen as if beset by nausea, but before Bard even got a word in edgewise, Thranduil pushed him into the bedroom and shagged his brains out. Nearly literally, because Bard forgot about being irritated for a good fifteen minutes afterwards while he had Thranduil’s hair splayed across his chest. Then he got mad at himself for letting Thranduil shag him before they’d actually spoken to each other. Another pattern right there.

Bard decided against fanning the flames, because Thranduil looked frayed around the edges (and the whole argument had been stupid anyway), so he asked Thranduil instead how it went. Not too well, apparently. Even though Thranduil’s mother had been the one to initially suggest it, all of a sudden she maintained that she was perfectly well living on her own and spent much of her time guilt-tripping Thranduil for leaving the country, depriving her of her grandson and only calling her a few times a year. She had moved into the home in the end, but not without protest. Given that merely being in Iceland had made Thranduil tense, the relentless needling from his mother can’t have helped. Bard should have come with him, but with his business still being new, it was hard taking more than a few days off. Legolas had had the same problem or at least he would have gone with Thranduil.

“You’re not going without me,” Bard grins and starts peeling a tangerine.

“You’re only interested in the hot springs.”

“They’re certainly a plus in a country where I’d otherwise freeze my balls off,” Bard says and shoves a wedge of tangerine into his mouth.

“It’s not _that_ cold,” Thranduil huffs. “I lived there for thirty years and my _balls_ are in perfect working condition.”

“I’m aware,” Bard says with his most lecherous grin and Thranduil rolls his eyes, even if he can’t hide the smile tugging at his lips.

“Get ready for work.”

“As you wish, my lord,” Bard hums and grabs his mug of tea to take it upstairs with him.

* * *

Bard spends his commute checking the various social media accounts for the Esgaroth, posting a snapshot he took yesterday of Bombur and Bifur peeking out of a box. To think that five years ago, he was incapable of uploading a profile picture on facebook and just barely managed to fetch his emails on his smartphone. Now he’s managing a whole battalion of accounts because the internet is in fact ruled by cats and his clowder has got a whole throng of admirers. Particularly Bombur and Bifur, his two bushiest cats (most likely they’ve got some Persian mixed in) who seemed to be made entirely out of red and respectively black and grey fur that sticks out in every direction. Everybody and their mother wants to brush them – and the two enjoy all the pampering and cooing. The café is fully booked today, as it is most days, really. They always keep a few spots open to walk-ins and they’ve started to serve drinks to go in their entrance-cum-gift-shop area because so many people drop in even if it’s just to look at the cats through the windows.

Once Bard unlocks the front door, he can already hear the excited patter of paws flocking to the entrance to the inner rooms. He’s got somebody on staff who checks on the cats in the early morning. Feeding, emptying litter boxes, refilling drinking fountains and seeing to everyone’s wellbeing. Either Bard or Percy arrive somewhere between 09:00 and 10:00 to get the place ready for the first customers at 11:30, sign off the cake and pastry deliveries (because of the cats they’re not allowed to cook on the premises, but Legolas supplies them with everything vegan and a cousin of Percy’s who runs a small patisserie in Brixton prepares the non-vegan goods of the menu), take inventory, check the emails and reservations. And, of course, play with the cats. 

Bard lounges in the office (definitely tidier than the one in Laketown), a purring Ori in his lap and doodles ideas for their Halloween menu on a page. People love the seasonal menus. Tilda has demanded he put something with ‘pumpkin spice’ on the drinks board, but Bard isn’t even all that sure what ‘pumpkin spice’ is exactly. Perhaps Legolas knows; Bard is meeting him tomorrow to agree on the seasonal cakes. Meanwhile, he copies and pastes the tenth explanation this week into an email as to why they don’t allow children below ten into the café. It’s not like he doesn’t want them there, but there were too many that weren’t thoughtful enough and kept breaking the rules. Even if all the parents are willing to swear their children are very good with cats. It’s not like Bard can make them perform a test prior to entry and when in doubt, he has to put the welfare of the cats first.

The morning and early afternoon are busy – Bard loves to hear the buzz of patrons through his office door and everybody seems to be happy. No one calls on him to deal with cat or client related issues. The biggest problem of the first half of his day is a broken cat toy.

Around lunchtime – still amazed that he can just disappear for an hour from his place without being beset by constant anxiety something might go wrong – he takes a stroll down the road to try the new falafel stand he saw there earlier this week. He’s been roped into Thranduil’s quest to find London’s best falafel. Not that there has been much persuasion needed; Bard was sold on falafel the first time Thranduil served them to him. While he waits for his food to be assembled he eyes the bright red stand to the left proclaiming the deliciousness of Japanese hot dogs. That one, he hasn’t heard of before. They even have a veggie option. Bard snaps a picture of the menu to show to Thranduil later.

On his way back, he gets a picture from Thranduil, consisting of a bottle of red wine and the take away menu of their favourite Italian bistro in Richmond. 

[From: Thranduil; 13:38] Since we have the house to ourselves tonight.

Right, Bard had almost forgotten Bain isn’t home tonight either. His computer programming club is doing a charity event: twenty-four hours of marathon-gaming. People can watch a stream on the internet and donate to one of a few charities they picked beforehand. One of the other boys’ fathers owns a small IT company and offered them use of their space for the event. Yesterday, Bain packed a worrying amount of energy drinks into the boot of Thranduil’s Tesla. Bard decided not to comment. 

[To: Thranduil; 13:39] netflix?  
[From: Thranduil; 13:41] No action movie.  
[To: Thranduil; 13:41] boo

Action films are Bard’s not-so-secret brainless pleasure. Thranduil hates them and can’t refrain from keeping up a running commentary on whatever is exploding on screen. It can be terribly amusing, but on other occasions, Bard wants to smother him with a pillow.

[To: Thranduil; 13:42] fine you choose. nothing french or black & white.  
[From: Thranduil; 13:43] Mais pourquoi?

Bard knows exactly zero French. And it probably isn’t necessary for this message. They just like to rib each other about their movie choices. Though Thranduil doesn’t exclusively watch strange art house cinema. He doesn’t watch it all that often really. Bard watched a total of one of them with him and it had been very French and very strange. Since then, French art house cinema is a running gag in their household.

[To: Thranduil; 13:44] sod off. thats french for sod off.  
[From: Thranduil; 13:46] Tu me blesses, mon coeur.

After that, Bard’s reply comes in the guise of a poop emoji. Thranduil is a damn language ninja. Bard only ever had one year of German in school and he’s forgotten all of it except ‘danke’ and ‘Gesundheit’. To prevent more French coming his way, he sends Thranduil the picture of the hot dog stand and turns back to the café, crumbling falafel into his beard.

* * *

In the end, Thranduil showed mercy and picked a decent movie – whatever it is that got him into the mood for Monty Python, Bard welcomes his luck. You can’t watch The Holy Grail too often. What’s also great about watching a classic is that it’s not too bad if you space out halfway through it because your boyfriend can’t keep his fingers off your crotch. Thranduil gets handsy when he’s tipsy and Bard only had one glass of red wine. Yet, the bottle is empty. Bard never questions this too much. It usually ends well for him.

As it did this time. He’s got strands of hair sticking to his face and neck, not all of them his own (there’s so much grey in it these days, Bard considers tinting – or a buzzcut, but Thranduil threatened him with bodily harm over that). Thranduil is bundled up in his arms, his naked rear pressing against Bard’s spent member. 

One of Bard’s favourite indulgences for kid-free evenings is being able to lie on the couch naked. Hell, to be able to have sex on the couch in the sitting room and not having to get up to cover yourself because one of the kids might walk through the front door. Bard smooths his hand over Thranduil’s taut stomach in small circles, feeling the still accelerated breath under his palm. Perhaps it’s Thranduil fruit and veggie wizardry that keeps him so firm after tipping over the line of forty since Bard notices with each passing year how he has to kick up his workout to keep his shape. It’s easier to keep fit now that he’s had a gym membership for a couple of years with Thranduil kicking his arse from the sidelines and he’s even got time now and then to shoot some arrows. Usually with Legolas, because Thranduil tried and failed miserably to master a bow and arrow. And since Thranduil can’t stand not excelling at something, he blamed it on the bow and the light and the wind and never tried again.

“We need more of these evenings,” Bard sighs and nuzzles Thranduil’s damp neck.

“Four more years,” Thranduil replies and pulls Bard’s arms tighter around him. “If we’re lucky and Tilda actually moves out for university.”

“Please,” Bard groans, though he’s joking. He’ll hate Tilda moving out, just like he hated Sigrid moving out and Bain’s announcement to move out. 

Bard groans some more when Thranduil wiggles his bottom against Bard’s crotch. He’s still sensitive, but there’s no way he can go another round now. Not that Thranduil can either – middle-age hasn’t passed him by entirely – but the bastard loves to tease Bard and string him high enough so that once they _can_ go another round, Thranduil will find himself thrown into a wall or pushed face first into a pillow. Bard tends to oblige, and happily so. Pinning Thranduil against a wall has numerous merits and Bard intends to reap them while he’s still capable of holding up someone as tall as Thranduil for any prolonged span of time. Though today, it ends up with Bard biting the arm rest of the sofa while Thranduil sends him to the brink of madness with his tongue between Bard’s buttocks. It has its very own set of merits.

“Oh God,” Bard groans once the purple spots before his vision start to recede, not even caring that he’s lying in the wet spot on the wool blanket they threw over the upholstering earlier.

“Did I do you in, old man?” Thranduil laughs and tucks a damp strand of hair behind his ear, but he too sounds out of breath.

“I’ll give you old man,” Bard grumbles, but he’s got his arm thrown over his eyes and isn’t moving.

“Not for another two hours,” Thranduil deadpans and moves out of the way before Bard can swat him on the rear.

Thranduil passes Bard the bottle of water before he pads over to the kitchen to go on the hunt for another round of wine presumably. Good thing their garden is walled off or the neighbours would now have an eyeful of a naked Thranduil choosing from the wine fridge. (Yes, they have a wine fridge. Thranduil insists it’s necessary, Bard thinks it’s pretentious bollocks.)

“Am I getting any this time?” Bard jabs as Thranduil returns with a fresh bottle.

“I’m considering it,” Thranduil says. “Unless you plan on dumping it on the sofa again.”

“You’ll never let me live that down, will you?” Three years ago, Bard spilled a glass of red wine on Thranduil’s new, pristine white sofa. The stain never came out so Thranduil eventually had the part re-upholstered. And he’s been needling Bard about it ever since.

Bard indeed tries to disprove the claims of old age later in bed, but the cats aren’t having it. Feren climbs on Thranduil’s stomach and playfully swats at Bard’s nose and hair just when he is attempting to go down on Thranduil. That and Thranduil’s laughter are entirely too distracting. Bard is used to Feren’s and Galion’s voyeuristic tendencies – he doesn’t even bat an eyelash anymore when they sit down at the foot of the bed and look at them in that judgemental way cats regard their human tin openers sometimes. He can even deal with them climbing all over the mattress and pillows seemingly just for the hell of it, but there’s only so much concentration to be had when you try to have sex and the cats decide your toes look like excellent prey to be hunted down. It ends with Galion curled up on Bard’s chest and Feren on the rug in front of the bed. Slightly frustrating, but Bard is pacified when Thranduil promises filthy things for the coming morning.

* * *

Filthy things don’t happen in the morning, because before anything of the sort can occur, Thranduil is on the phone with an irate client from halfway around the globe if the time is any indication. Thranduil is cranky (probably not just because of the client since he also looks like he’s nursing a mild hangover) and Bard zones out watching the morning news on the telly. He could go downstairs and make some tea but the blankets are warm and cosy. 

Somewhere to his right, Thranduil curses Haldir and his ‘stupid holiday’ – it appears Haldir is ignoring Thranduil’s call, which Bard quietly considers a wise move or Thranduil would find a way to make the man work even when he’s a couple thousand miles away with no steady internet connection. He’s on a road trip through the US for four weeks with Aragorn in tow. Bard wonders if they’re going to return married since their trip will end in Las Vegas and Haldir is actually mental enough to have a shotgun wedding to the guy he only got back together with six weeks ago. They were split for well over a year and Aragorn just returned from a research period in New Zealand. Aragorn is usually sensible, but Legolas claims that his flatmate loses all reason when it comes to Haldir. Apparently he and Gimli have a betting pool going whether they’re going to do something stupid on the trip. Or rather what stupid thing they are going to do. Neither of them dared banking on their being reasonable. 

Children. Which reminds Bard that he has to send off Sigrid’s present so it’ll reach her in time for her birthday. She’s just about to finish her Master’s degree and Bard couldn’t be prouder. He just always forgets that packages to Ireland take a few days.

There’s an irate sigh to his right as Thranduil greets Celeborn at the other end of the line. Looks like the client chose to bother Celeborn as well. A client, a hangover and Celeborn at five-thirty in the morning is asking for trouble.

Bard decides to make tea after all. And bring some aspirin along.

* * *

“We ought to get married,” Thranduil says and Bard, who’s only been listening with half an ear because he’s been posting new pictures of the cats to various social media outlets of his café, nearly chokes on his tea.

While he tries to remove the liquid from his lungs by way of coughing out said lungs, Thranduil regards him with an arched eyebrow and faint boredom, holding a glass of that revolting green smoothie he has in the morning.

He _must_ have heard him wrong. Otherwise he’d need to consider the possibility that Thranduil just proposed to him and Bard normally thinks that would require stepping into an alternate universe.

“If you’re quite finished,” Thranduil says and looks amused. He takes another sip of his smoothie. Kale, spinach, avocado and apple. Bard tried it once because Thranduil swears by it, but to Bard it tasted like what he imagines chewing on grass would be like. It even smells revolting. Bard thinks Thranduil always prepares it in Bard’s presence as a revenge for Bard frying eggs in his vicinity (which Bard doesn’t actually do on purpose).

“Are you trying to kill me?” Bard rasps after he manages to regain his breathing.

“I can think of at least five easier ways to do that,” Thranduil says and flips the page of his paper.

“Don’t start reading the paper now!” Bard exclaims and he’ll forever deny the squeak in his voice. “Because if you didn’t try to kill me just now you actually proposed.”

Thranduil lowers the paper enough to look at Bard in that way which says that he finds Bards entirely too hysterical. The damn eyebrow is up again. It has three thousand ways to communicate anything from amusement to disdain.

“Shall I get you a paper bag to breathe in?”

“Funny,” Bard grumbles and plucks the paper from Thranduil’s hands.

Not in a million years would he have expected Thranduil to suggest marriage. Bard has been thinking about it occasionally for the last year or so, but figured he’d wait for a few more years before bringing it up. Thranduil has been skittish over the last five years – not for some time now, but there were a number of instances where he’d nearly run from their relationship. Most infamous was the time three years ago when they decided for Bard, Bain and Tilda to move into Thranduil’s house. Two days before the moving date, all boxes and bags already packed up, the lease terminated and the rooms for Bain and Tilda already set up, Thranduil descended into his version of a panic and attempted to break up with Bard. Bard stood his ground, had a bit of a shout and refused to hand back the key. After that, Thranduil actually started to consult a therapist occasionally. Which he should have done fifteen years ago, Bard thinks, but better late than never.

“You’re actually serious?” Bard still isn’t sure if he ought to consider bodysnatchers as a possible explanation.

“Were you expecting a ring and a string quartet?” Thranduil licks the breadcrumbs he collected from his plate off his fingertips and looks mildly ridiculed.

“Absolutely,” Bard snorts. The idea of Thranduil sinking to one knee in a romantic gesture is hysterical. There’s only one reason Thranduil sinks to his knees in front of Bard and Bard likes that one better actually.

Seconds later, Thranduil hands Bard a crude ring he’s apparently just fashioned from the crumpled tinfoil of one of the yogurt lids.

“Not even a diamond,” Bard huffs. “Cheapskate.”

“A diamond could not compare to the radiating brilliance of your eyes,” Thranduil deadpans.

“Never say something like that again,” Bard says and laughs while he wiggles the tinfoil ring onto his finger. “Out of your mouth it just sounds creepy.”

“I’m wounded,” Thranduil sighs dramatically and puts a hand over his heart.

“So when we’re married,” Bard asks after a moment of silence, barely able to conceal his grin, “can I call you Thran?”

Thranduil narrows his eyes dangerously at Bard. The man hates any and all nicknames people have come up with for him and Bard sometimes uses them to get a rise out of Thranduil.

“Try it and die,” Thranduil hisses and Bard can’t contain his laughter any longer. Thranduil looks just too much like one of their cats when he’s trying to be indignant.

“You can’t get rid of me so easily,” Bard chuckles and tugs on a loose strand of Thranduil’s hair to capture his mouth in a kiss.

“If you ever call me Thran I’ll make sure your body is never found,” Thranduil murmurs against his lips before he pulls back a little.

“I’d like to see you try...Thran,” Bard says and bounds out of the room, ducking just in time to avoid being hit in the head with the rolled up morning paper Thranduil threw after him.

“I’m taking it all back,” Thranduil calls after him while Bard gathers his wallet and keys, still laughing. “I’m not going to marry you, I’m going to kill you!”

Bard waves the crumpled tinfoil ring in Thranduil’s direction. “Too late,” he grins and opens the front door, Galion darting outside ahead of him. “You’re officially stuck with me now, darling.”

He manages to close the door before one of the cushions hits him square in the face, accompanied by a string of Icelandic curses. Thranduil is going to be a handful, he thinks and finds himself unable to wipe the grin off his face.

Still, there’s no one he’d rather be stuck with.

**Author's Note:**

> If you spot typos or catch me using weird grammar, please let me know!


End file.
